


Sick Of Losing Soulmates

by red_to_black



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Homeless, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:49:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 60,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_to_black/pseuds/red_to_black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brett wasn't expecting to be kicked out for coming out. He also wasn't expecting to be taken in by three broke college students.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nodus Tollens: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Dodie Clark's song, "Sick of Losing Soulmates" and the lyrics are hers too :)

**One: Nodus Tollens**

_Nodus Tollens: The realisation that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore._

~*~

Of all the things Brett didn’t think would happen when he came out as bi to his parents, being kicked out was at the top of the list.

Well, not exactly kicked out, per se. His mother had cried a little, and his father had told him that he couldn’t be on the fence, that he had to choose one way or another, and if not, they wouldn’t deal with having “that kind of stuff” in the house. Which culminated in a shouting match and his parents telling him to find somewhere to stay “until he changes his mind”.

Brett hops on the first bus and fucks off out of his shitty hometown, figuring there has to be something for him, somewhere, in the city. It’s the middle of winter; he doesn’t know anyone. He takes some things - an overstuffed duffel of clothes, his laptop, some other stuff that has sentimental value. Other than that, he’s only got what he’s wearing, some money in a bank account, and his phone.

The first night is easy - he sleeps on the bus heading towards the closest city. The second is a little more difficult - he pays for a dingy little room for the night, but he can’t keep doing that if he wants to eat, and so the third and fourth nights see him in a homeless shelter, shivering in the winter air and trying not to think about how hungry he is.

He’s gone from being a warm, well-fed, almost-graduated college student to being homeless in less than a week. He’s scared. He spends the first night in the shelter crying silently, the tears leaving frozen tracks on his cheeks. In the morning, his eyes are puffy, and a few of the women give him sympathetic looks.

The fifth day he’s really starting to feel it. He’s barely showered or eaten for the last few days, and the shelter is only open from seven PM onwards; he has to leave in the morning along with the rest.

He catches the bus and gets off at the first stop that seems a little less crowded than the rest of them. It’s just past eight, and he’s starving and cold as he looks around the tiny little street he’s found himself on.

He heads into the first cafe he sees, mostly because it looks warm and it’s frozen outside - it’ll snow soon, he can feel it in the air. The cafe’s only moderately busy, and Brett stands there for a moment, feeling hopeless and very out of place. He feels like people can tell, just by looking at him, that he’s homeless, freaking out, and not even sure what he’s going to do after this.

The girl taking orders has long, glossy, curly brown hair and matching brown eyes, beautiful, flawless olive skin and a friendly, if somewhat strained, smile. He can only just see the shape of a barista behind the coffee machine, and he doesn’t pay much attention until he reaches the front of the line.

“Hi, how are you today?” the girl asks cheerfully. Her nametag says Hayden, complete with a little smiley face at the end.

“I’m good, thank you,” he murmurs. Thank God there’s not a line behind him; he’s so hungry he’s not really thinking straight. “Can I uh… can I have a medium mocha and one of the ham and cheese croissants?” What’s he supposed to eat while homeless? He’s not sure what’s a better option for him.

“No problem,” she says, punching everything in. “Nine eighty. And your name?”

“Brett,” he says, handing over the money. “Thanks.”

He collects the change from her, then takes his table number and sits down. As he does, he catches sight of the barista - he’s shorter than Hayden, the girl at the counter, has spiky blonde hair with a strip of bright purple in the middle and a little bit of stubble on his cheeks. Unlike Hayden, he looks tired and decidedly cranky; when he looks up, his eyes are large and icy blue.

Brett’s heart jumps into his throat before settling. The guy’s cute, maybe his age, and Brett’s just remembered that the whole reason he was thrown out was for being bi in the first place. Funnily enough, his sexuality hasn’t been at the forefront of his mind with trying to find food and shelter.

He plugs his laptop in at the wall to charge, finds that there’s wifi here. He hooks up to it and finds a YouTube video of interest; he knows he should be looking for places to stay, for resources he could possibly use, for jobs. But right now, his brain is fried and he’s hungry and tired and just doesn’t want to think about the fact that he’s homeless. At all.

“Order for Brett?”

Brett looks up; the barista is looking around tiredly, and he sounds about the same - flat out exhausted, that is. It is early, and cold, Brett reminds himself.

He stands up and goes to the counter; his coffee and croissant are laid out on a tray. The coffee has a Darth Vader face drawn into the foam with cocoa powder.

He smiles. “Darth Vader?”

The guy looks up from cleaning the machine, seeming mildly surprised at being spoken to. “You didn’t seem like a panda kind of guy.”

Brett smiles a little. “Nothing wrong with pandas.”

The guy shrugs. “Pandas are cute I guess, but Darth Vader has the Force.”

Brett looks down at his coffee, wraps his hands around it; the guy isn’t making anything else, and there’s no one lined up. “So why one or the other?”

The guy gestures at Hayden, the counter girl. “She keeps telling me it’ll improve business if we have a “flair” or something,” he mutters. “I mean I’m not really an artist but business means I have a job.”

Brett’s never heard someone so irate about coffee art. “You don’t like it?”

“You know how many fucking pandas I draw a day, dude?”

Brett surprises himself by laughing. “Well, thanks for the effort.”

The guy shrugs. “Kids like it.”

“I bet.” Brett watches as the guy rotates towards him, trying to see his nametag. The staff here seem pretty friendly, and the prices are good. Brett could probably keep coming back here.

He finally catches sight of the nametag. “McGrumpy?” he asks slowly. The name’s even complete with a little frowny face at the end.

The guy looks down. “Oh. Yeah. Apparently I have an attitude problem, but that depends on who you’re asking.”

Brett smiles. “Do you have an attitude problem?” he asks.

“Yeah,” the guy admits.

Brett chuckles. “So what’s your real name?”

“Liam,” he says. “That’s Hayden, and I’d introduce you to our manager but once again, he’s shot through and left us with twenty million bloody customers and one less pair of hands.”

“Sounds bad,” Brett says sympathetically.

“And he won’t hire anyone else because he’s fucking stingy,” Liam complains, “and doesn’t want to actually have to declare employees on his tax, which is flouting about a million different laws. Probably.”

“You know much about law?” Brett asks.

“Only how to break it. Which he is.”

“You an expert in breaking the law?”

“Don’t have to be. You wanna break the law? Smash a window or snort some cocaine. It’s easy.”

“… Are you speaking from experience?” Brett asks, feeling slightly afraid and not quite knowing what to make of Liam. He’s clearly eccentric, maybe a little irritable, and Brett really isn’t sure if Liam’s genuinely suggesting he go break a window and snort cocaine. Plus, there’s that bright violet strip of colour in his hair.

Liam gives him an odd look. “No. Just hypothetically. If you wanted to break the law, that’s how you could do it. Or you could punch someone.”

Hayden sticks a new order on Liam’s coffee machine, and Liam sighs tiredly before turning to it. Brett takes his food back to his table - where all his things are sitting - but watches as Liam works. He’s pretty muscular, even though he is a whole head and then some shorter than Brett himself.

Liam draws a panda on this coffee and passes it to the customer with a tight, forced smile. The customer doesn’t thank him, just snatches the takeaway cup and leaves; the moment she turns, the smile falls off Liam’s face and is replaced with a scowl; he rolls his eyes with a huff and goes back to cleaning the machine.

Brett almost inhales his croissant - he’s so hungry he feels like his stomach is eating itself - but he takes as long as possible with his coffee. He knows they can’t kick him out as long as he’s still drinking.

The cafe fills up just after nine, and, by ten thirty, is almost empty again. Liam looks harassed; there are dark brown smears of coffee on his face and neck, and his hair is standing up almost on end. Even Hayden’s smile has slipped a little, and she seems decidedly more cheerful than Liam does.

The door opens just past eleven; Brett’s been here for almost three hours, and even though he finished his food and coffee a long time ago - and Hayden and Liam definitely noticed, because Liam collected his plate and cutlery - they haven’t kicked him out. They’ve let him stay, probably because it isn’t horribly busy and he’s not really annoying anyone.

He looks up. The man who strides in looks annoyed, and Hayden lowers her eyes as he approaches the counter.

“It’s an absolute fucking shitstorm out there,” the man complains - his accent is British, Brett thinks. “I’ve never seen so much fucking snow in my life.”

Liam - who’s cleaning the coffee machine for the millionth time - stares straight ahead at the mugs on top with a flat, irritated expression. Brett can almost hear him counting to ten and praying for patience; he feels bad for them. This must be their boss.

“At least we’re inside,” Hayden says, and her voice is tight and high.

“That’s hardly - has he even ordered?”

Brett tries not to look startled; he’s wearing headphones, and they must think he’s not listening. He keeps his eyes averted as the coffee machine starts up.

“Oh,” Hayden says. “Who?”

“Him! In the corner! With the laptop!”

“He ordered,” Liam says lazily. “Right before you walked in.” Brett chances a glance up; their boss is shaking his head, sighing, muttering something about customers leeching the wifi here. Liam’s making another coffee - a large one this time.

He looks back down at his laptop, nervous. He doesn’t really have anyplace else to go and it’s cold out; he can’t afford another bus fare, the shelter doesn’t reopen for residents until seven, and-

“Tall caramel macchiato for Brett,” Liam’s voice announces. Brett looks up, startled, to see Liam standing at his table, holding a delicious, frothing, huge coffee on a platter. There’s a gingerbread man on the side.

“I-” he begins.

Liam narrows his eyes. “You are Brett, right?” he asks.

Brett sees Hayden widen her eyes at him meaningfully. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, sorry. Listening to music.”

“Tall caramel macchiato,” Liam says, putting it down. “Enjoy.”

The word looks like it hurts on the way out; he goes back to the counter, and their boss sticks his head out.

“Did you just take him his coffee?” he demands.

“Yeah,” Liam replies, almost icily. “You keep telling us to be friendly to the customers. I was being friendly. You know, conscientious and stuff.”

“Customers like it much more when you take them their things,” Hayden pitches in helpfully. “When we do it people are more likely to come back.”

“Okay, just don’t spill anything on them,” their boss mutters. “I’m heading out again. See if I can get all this paperwork sorted. Are you guys fine to close up?”

“We’ll manage,” Hayden says with a smile.

“Alright. I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

“Bye,” Hayden says.

Liam waits until the door’s shut to lift his head and glare after it. “Wouldn’t _dream_ of spilling scalding hot coffee on a customer,” he mutters. “No, not me, never. Might _fantasise_ about it, but…”

“Liam,” Hayden scolds. “Someone could hear you.”

“You kidding me, Hayds? No one pays attention to me. I’m a barista. A customer service representative. They think I’m a mindless machine who never fucks up. Nobody’s paying attention to anything I do. I could strip buck naked and pole dance in here and nobody would bat an eyelid.”

Brett can’t help but snort. They both turn to look at him.

“Sorry,” he says, smiling faintly. “And thanks. For this. I’ll pay when I leave.”

“It’s on the house,” Liam says quickly.

“What? I-”

“I fucked up someone else’s order, I don’t drink that shit, _it’s on the house_ ,” Liam says pointedly.

_They gave me this so I wouldn’t get kicked out by their boss_ , Brett realises. _They must’ve realised I’m trying to stay here._

“Thank you,” he says.

Liam shrugs.

~*~

Brett stays for the rest of the day.

The cafe is open until five thirty. He starts to feel nervous the moment he realises Liam and Hayden are packing up; they don’t ask him to move, and he stays where he is, hoping that maybe they forget he’s here and that he can just sleep on the benches. Anything would be better than the shelter.

He’s out of luck, though. At five thirty, after having packed up all the chairs and brought in the mostly unused tables from outside, Hayden taps him on the shoulder regretfully and says, “I’m sorry, but we’re leaving now.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” His throat tightens. “I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay,” she says kindly. “How ‘bout you come back tomorrow? Liam makes a mean mocha, and he likes experimenting.”

Brett looks around. Liam’s mopping the floors, scowling. He doesn’t look like he likes anything, truthfully, but he’ll trust Hayden’s judgment.

“Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

He goes outside and tries to read the bus timetable, but it’s been vandalised, so he stands and shivers and waits, dreading the shelter and the pitying looks of the older women there - of the leering, mean-spirited glares of everyone else. It’s clear there that he’s new to the streets, that they don’t like how clean-cut and fresh he looks.

After ten minutes, he turns. He’s surprised to see that Hayden and Liam are still inside - even more surprised to see that they’re dancing around the shop floor, and that Hayden’s laughing as Liam stumbles over his own feet.

Brett wants to be happy for them, but his throat hurts and he misses home and he can’t honestly imagine things getting better, so he looks away.

The door opens another twenty minutes later; it’s just past six, and the temperature has dropped considerably. He hears Hayden and Liam exit, Liam grumbling about the cold. He carefully doesn’t look at them.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Brett turns. Hayden and Liam, the cafe workers, are standing behind him. Hayden’s wearing a blue coat that’s almost bigger than she is, and Liam’s wearing a grey hoodie under a blue denim jacket, lined with faux fur. Hayden looks okay, but Liam’s nose and cheeks are red, and he looks pretty irritated. Probably wanting to go home after a long day.

“Hey, yeah, um - when’s the next bus come?” he asks helplessly.

Hayden checks her phone. “You missed it,” she says apologetically. “You might have to call a taxi.”

He can’t afford a taxi, but he’s also not about to let on. “I uh - thanks,” he murmurs, throat tight. He’s tired and cold and kind of hungry and really, really wishes going home was even a remote possibility. He can’t walk to the shelter, either - it’s too far away.

He notices Hayden hesitate. Even though Liam looks annoyed, he doesn’t make to pull her away; he scuffs one shoe in the snow and looks around, shivering lightly. The strip of purple in his hair stands out like paint on an otherwise white canvas.

“Do you want a lift somewhere?” Hayden asks, and Liam’s head jerks up to look at her.

He doesn’t really have anywhere to go. “Um, no thanks,” he says softly.

“Where d'you live?” Liam asks suddenly. It’s the first time he’s spoken since bringing Brett the extra coffee; Hayden shoots him a slightly exasperated look.

Brett hesitates. But he doesn’t have a valid answer, and even if he did, his reluctance to give it up, coupled with the fact that he’s been at their cafe all day, makes him pretty unbelievable anyway. “I don’t,” he says softly.

Hayden’s expression crumples into sympathy, which is kind of what Brett was afraid of, but Liam’s doesn’t shift - not an inch. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pair of keys, and heads back to the cafe doors, kneeling to unlock them at the bottom.

“C'mon,” he says.

Brett looks at Hayden, startled. She smiles a little as she follows Liam back inside, holds the door open for him.

When they’re inside, Liam shuts the door and locks it at the bottom again, then leads them to the back, right past all the machines. They end up in what must be a break room.

Liam flicks the kettle in the corner on and squats down at the fridge; he hasn’t said anything.

“You can put your stuff down,” Hayden says kindly.

Brett does, silently.

“So what’s going on?” she asks gently, sitting across from him. Brett’s momentarily distracted by Liam rooting around in the fridge, and it takes her prompting him gently for him to answer.

“Got kicked out of home,” Brett says quietly. “Almost a week ago now. I’ve been sort of… just staying at shelters and stuff. When I can. They close them during the day so people can’t steal stuff I guess. I came in here thinking that if I bought a coffee-”

“You could stay,” Hayden finishes for him. “We kind of figured there was a reason you hung around all day.” She turns to look at Liam, who looks tense - almost flighty, like he really wants to leave the room and the whole situation behind. “It was Liam’s idea to give you that extra coffee when our boss came back,” she adds quickly. “So he wouldn’t kick you out.”

Brett looks to Liam, who now looks about ready to jump out of his skin with discomfort. “Thank you,” he says.

“Don’t mention it,” Liam mutters, then slams the fridge door maybe a little harder than necessary. Brett flinches.

“Why’d you get kicked out?” Hayden asks quickly, obviously trying to distract him from Liam’s black mood. Brett realises he’s probably encroaching on Liam’s territory here - it’s pretty obvious they’re a thing, especially after he saw them dancing around the floor while cleaning up for the night. Still, he sort of wishes the guy had some compassion. He’s probably regretting that coffee right about now.

“I got kicked out for coming out,” he says softly.

Liam turns around; his expression softens, almost infinitesimally. Hayden looks downright distraught for him.

“You got kicked out for being gay?”

“Bi,” Brett says quietly. “Yeah.”

“Well, do you uh - I guess you don’t have anyone you could stay with, or you would be, huh?” she asks.

The kettle clicks off. Liam heaps two massive spoonfuls of hot chocolate powder into a mug, then sugar, then adds water and milk. He puts it down in front of Brett, muttering, “Not exactly barista quality, but I’m not cleaning the machine again.”

Hayden gives him that same exasperated look. “Liam.”

“What?”

“Play nice.”

“I made fucking hot chocolate, I am playing nice. You want me to get down on one knee and propose?”

Hayden giggles a little, which Brett supposes means Liam must be joking, even though he can’t pick up a single inflection of humour in the guy’s voice.

He startles a little when a power bar and a tub of yoghurt land in front of him, along with a spoon. Liam shoots him a mildly irritated glance, but there’s no heat behind it; he slumps down into the other chair. Brett likes the way Liam carries himself completely unselfconsciously, at home in his own skin.

Hayden bites her lip and looks at Liam, widening her eyes a little bit.

“Fuck, Hayds,” Liam groans. “Seriously?”

“What?” Brett asks.

“Well, you could… if it’s okay with Liam… stay with us? For the night? You know, that way you’re out of the cold.”

Brett’s shocked into silence. He’s met these two baristas today, and they’re showing him a level of kindness even his own parents didn’t. He doesn’t want to cry, but it’s been a rough week. Before he can stop himself, there are tears rolling down his cheeks.

Hayden reaches into her bag and pulls out a travel pack of tissues, handing them to him with a kind smile. Liam’s averting his eyes politely, expression neutral.

“Mason’s not gonna like it,” he says.

“We can deal with Mason. He’ll cave. And it’s only for a night.”

Liam cuts a glance to Brett. “He’s a little bigger than the strays we take in from the shelter,” he mutters dryly. “But yeah. Okay.”

“Wait, seriously?” Brett croaks, sniffling. “You guys are taking me home?”

“If you wanna come,” Liam says flippantly.

“Yeah. You can sleep on the couch,” Hayden says kindly. “And I think we’re having Chinese for dinner, right, Li-Li?”

“Don’t call me that,” he mumbles, but Brett sees his mouth curl a little in a smile. “Yeah. Mason’s bringing some home. I’ll tell him to get extra.”

“I can’t pay,” Brett rushes to say. “I’m pretty much broke, I-”

“It’s on us,” Hayden says; Liam’s already got his phone out. “Finish your hot chocolate and we’ll go. Liam’ll be pissed if you waste it now.”

Liam already seems pretty pissed, but Brett sits and drinks, letting the warmth of the mug and the drink itself calm him down; he eats the yoghurt and power bar and feels a little steadier. When he’s done, they stand up - and Liam grabs his duffel before Brett can even get to it, slings it bodily around his short frame, and strides to the front doors.

“My car’s around the back,” Hayden says as they step into the cold; it’s dark out. “This way.”

“What about him?” Liam’s kneeling at the front door, swearing.

“He’ll catch up,” she says. “I’ll get the heat going. That’ll make him happy.”

Brett doubts anything makes Liam happy, but he follows her to her car, and by the time they’ve climbed inside and Hayden’s got the ignition started, Liam’s caught up to them. He puts Brett’s bag in the backseat next to him and joins Hayden in the front.

“Can we listen to something other than your girly shit?” he grumbles.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my girly shit,” she replies heatedly, “and if it weren’t for me you’d look like a sad, faded, radioactive skunk, so you’d better be nice to me before asking me to redye your hair.”

Liam mutters something under his breath, but he’s also smiling. The car’s warming up, and Brett’s exhausted, but he tries to pay attention to where they’re going. He’ll have to know for tomorrow.

They take turn after turn; eventually, Hayden turns left off a busy main road and drive to the end of a long, narrow street. It’s so dark down here from the trees that the streetlamps barely illuminate anything; across the street is a tiny convenience store and some car parks, and this side is taken up with apartments.

“We live at the front of the block,” Hayden explains as they drive in. “It’s kind of fun to watch everyone walk by.”

Liam doesn’t add anything. Brett shakes himself awake as they park, and then get out of the car. Liam takes his duffel again and goes to the front door of the apartment complex, punches in a code, and enters, holding the door for them.

The lobby’s small, but sort of nice in its own way; it has stairs, but Liam and Hayden go for the elevator. Brett’s grateful for that. He’s been underfed all week and he’s feeling pretty off for it. Weak, like he’s sick.

The elevator stops on the second floor, and they all pile out. Liam unlocks the door at the end of the hallway, and they step inside.

“Home sweet home,” Hayden says to Brett, evidently trying to make him feel more at ease. Liam throws his keys into a bowl by the door and puts Brett’s duffel down on the couch.

The living room’s small, but it’s pretty cosy looking. Two couches, both a dark blue material, with cushions that are definitely from Urban Outfitters or Free People or some shit. A coffee table stacked with a mismatch of different things - remotes, gaming controllers, headsets. A bottle of pills that Liam snatches up and pockets.

Brett swallows as he enters. He’s nervous. Mason, who he assumes is their roommate, isn’t here.

“You can sit down,” Hayden says kindly.

Brett sinks into the couch cushions gratefully. Liam’s gone, but he can hear movement down the narrow hallway, the sounds of a cupboard door opening and closing. When he looks around, Liam’s returning with two pillows and a pile of blankets.

“Here,” he says, putting them down at the end of the couch. “Gets cold in here at night, but this should be okay.” With that, he exits the room.

Brett looks at Hayden. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

“For what?”

“Making him mad.”

“Oh, he’s not mad,” Hayden says. “Not any more than usual anyway. He’s kind of always like that. You know, on a scale of one to ten, one being totally zen and ten being uncontrollably enraged, his baseline is about a three or four.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to make him a five or six. Bet he doesn’t like that I’m here.”

She looks down the hallway thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” she says. “He’s acting tough but I don’t think he minds that much, actually. You definitely would’ve known by now if he did. What makes you say that anyway?”

“Aren’t you guys together?”

She laughs. “No. Just roommates. We’ve been best friends for years. Us and Mason.”

“Hayden,” Liam calls. “Your fucking cat is eating shoelaces again.”

“Aww, come on,” she moans. “Jelly, no-”

“Jelly?” Brett asks, confused.

“Hayden takes in strays from the shelter,” Liam says. “Brings them back here until they can be housed. Jelly is enormously obese and loves shoelaces.”

Brett turns. Hayden’s carrying a cat down the hallway - and Liam’s right; the thing is massive, and has a shoelace dangling from its teeth.

“He’s friendly,” Hayden says, pulling the shoelace out of Jelly’s mouth and plopping him down on the couch next to Liam. “And Liam was the one who wanted to bring him home.”

“He’s soft and squishy, why wouldn’t I want to bring him home?”

The front door opens; Liam and Hayden’s roommate steps through, a tall black guy with a wide, friendly smile and glittering brown eyes. He’s wearing a beanie and a heavy leather jacket.

“Got the Chinese food,” he says, stepping inside and kicking his shoes off. “Why’d you ask for more? What gives?”

Hayden clears her throat awkwardly. “Mason, this is Brett,” she says slowly. “Brett… Mason. Our roommate.”

Mason stops in his tracks upon seeing Brett. “Is this… a friend? From college?” he asks.

“No,” Liam says succinctly.

“Who the hell is he then?” Mason demands.

Hayden rounds on Liam. “You didn’t tell him?!”

“I told him to get more food,” Liam says. “I may have forgotten to mention the random stranger for dinner part. Sorry.”

Hayden turns back to Mason, her eyes pleading. “Mason,” she says. “C'mon. He came into the cafe, and he - he’s homeless, and he missed the last bus and he can’t afford a taxi, and he doesn’t have anywhere else to go, and-”

“This isn’t safe!” Mason splutters. “He could be anyone!”

“He needs our help,” Hayden pleads. “It’s only for one night-”

“No, no, look - and sorry, dude, nothing personal or anything,” Mason says, and Brett nods a little; he sort of gets it, really, even though that doesn’t stop him from being offended in the slightest. “But you could be anyone, you could be a meth addict or-”

“He’s not a meth addict,” Liam says.

“How do you know?”

“Dude, you ever seen a meth addict with teeth that nice? Nah. And his nose isn’t jacked so he’s not snorting anything. And his arms don’t have tracks so he’s not shooting heroin.”

How does he know all that? Brett wonders, but he’s grateful for Liam’s interference nonetheless.

“We aren’t just throwing him back outside,” Hayden says, clearly upset. “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go!”

“There are shelters-”

“Mase, we’re sorta fucked on the security issue anyway, what with him knowing where we live and all,” Liam interrupts. “Besides, what’s he gonna steal? The cutlery? It was from Walmart.”

Brett thinks that maybe that’s Liam’s roundabout way of standing up for him. Maybe. He can’t really tell; he’s fairly sure Liam’s only agreeing to appease Hayden, who seems to be the only one out of the three who wants to let him stay.

Mason sighs. “Liam, you kidding me? You think this is a good idea?”

Liam shrugs. “It’s not the worst.”

Mason sighs again, a little less forcefully. Hayden, apparently sensing weakness from him, says, “C'mon, Mason. It’s just for a night. We’ll help him out tonight and get him back on his feet tomorrow. He missed the bus and the cutoff for the closest shelter.”

Mason turns around to look at Liam, who’s sitting on the arm of the couch with his arms crossed. “You agree with this?” he asks.

Liam holds out one hand and shrugs.

Mason groans. “Okay, fine, I’m sold.”

Hayden brightens immeasurably. “Awesome! Okay, let’s get dinner served up, then!”

They sit around the coffee table to eat. Hayden sits across from him, and Brett’s kind of surprised when Liam settles in beside him, slowly, looking a little tense. He’s got a plate of fried rice and dumplings, and - well, Brett doesn’t recognise the rest.

“Liam uses chopsticks,” Hayden says, obviously trying to ease the tension and awkwardness. “But Mason and I use forks, so do whatever’s comfortable for you.”

The meals came with disposable chopsticks; Brett breaks them apart. “I don’t know how, but learning something new couldn’t hurt,” he says, trying to smile. He wants them to like him - to know that he’s grateful and not going to rob them.

Liam looks up at him and smiles a little bit; some of the iciness seems to have melted away now that Brett’s made an effort to use chopsticks. “Like this,” he says, holding up his hand - he’s left-handed, Brett notes. “It gets easier the more you do it.”

Brett tries - Liam wields the chopsticks like they’re a knife and fork, using them to cut and hold food easily. Brett eventually gives up and spears a dumpling on the end of one of his, then nibbles at the edge, kind of afraid that Liam will be affronted.

He isn’t. He even laughs a little bit. He still seems a little bit tense, but nowhere near what he was. “That’s it,” he says. “You got it.”

“There’s bending the truth and then there’s lying, Liam,” Hayden says with a smile.

“Hey, it works, right?” Mason asks. “Long as he can eat and shit.” He looks up. “So… mind if I ask why you’re homeless?”

Brett swallows. “Parents kicked me out,” he says quietly. “For coming out as bi.”

“Shit, dude, that’s rough,” Mason says. “I’m sorry. Hey, there’s an LGBTQA+ resource centre right near the shelter - I volunteer there sometimes. You need anything, come on by.”

Brett’s suddenly overwhelmed by everything - that he’s not in the shelter, that he’s got a place to sleep for at least tonight, that he’s eating food he didn’t even have to pay for, that all three of them are trying to be nice to him. He doesn’t have time to put his chopsticks down before he’s crying, again.

“You broke him,” Liam says. “Good one.”

“I was trying to be nice,” Mason says weakly. “Shit, dude, I didn’t-”

Hayden passes Brett a box of tissues and, to his surprise, comes around the coffee table and puts an arm over his shoulders. “He’s had a really long day,” she says defensively. “And he’s in a really fucked up situation. He’s allowed to cry. Nobody broke anyone.”

“Sorry,” Brett mumbles thickly, trying to stem the tears.

“What for?” Liam wonders aloud.

He shrugs. “I can’t use chopsticks properly,” he chokes out, and then he’s crying again like that’s really his problem. Like his inability to cut food with little pieces of wood is really what’s causing this epic, monumentally embarrassing meltdown. He’s twenty one and crying over Chinese food in the apartment of three broke-ass college students; this isn’t where he thought his life was going.

“Um,” Liam says helplessly. “That’s…”

“How long did you say you’d been homeless for again, Brett?” Hayden asks softly.

“About a week now.”

He feels that they’re all looking at one another. “I’m sorry,” he croaks, aiming it mostly at Liam. “I didn’t - I mean, I didn’t want to - you know, I-” His brain is so fried he can’t find the words.

“You scared of me?” Liam asks. “'Cause, seriously, I don’t think anyone’s been so polite to me ever. You don’t have to be. I’m like five feet tall.”

Even Brett has to laugh at that - he’s miserable and scared and still probably not done crying, and he’s not convinced that Liam doesn’t hate him - if anything, this just makes him think that Liam’s trying to be nice because he thinks Brett is pathetic.

“Be nice,” Hayden scolds. “You prickly little hedgehog.”

Liam raises his middle finger as Mason laughs. “He’s more of a honey badger, I think,” he chuckles. “Short, small, but one hell of an attitude problem.”

“The only problem with my attitude is what you think of it,” Liam huffs. “I think I’m well adjusted.”

“You keep thinking that, sweetie,” Hayden teases, tugging the purple strip in Liam’s hair playfully and laughing as he bats her away. She’s still got an arm around Brett’s shoulders; they banter amongst themselves as he cleans himself up.

“Here.”

Brett blinks. Liam’s passing his plate over; there’s a little left of everything. “Try the honey chicken,” he says, and then smiles a little. “It’s in little pieces so it should be easy to hold with the chopsticks.”

Brett gives him a weak smile. “Thanks.” He manages to grab a piece and down it; it’s deliciously flavourful, seeming to melt in his mouth before he gets the chance to chew.

“There you go,” Liam says. “One problem down.”

And about a million more to go.

~*~

He wakes up in the morning disoriented and not knowing where he is.

He freezes in place, looking around, seeing an unfamiliar light fixture and coffee table, a bookshelf stacked haphazardly with everything that isn’t a book, and a TV.

“Yo.”

He jumps, whips around, and finds Liam sitting cross-legged on the other side of the coffee table. He looks sleepy, and he’s wearing a pair of glasses, but he’s watching Brett like a hawk.

“Hi,” Brett breathes. “What - where-”

“Our couch,” Liam says. “Don’t know the rest.”

“Are you - are you trying to make sure I don’t steal anything?”

Liam raises his eyebrows. The glasses make him look ridiculously hot. So does the tight black henley he’s wearing. Brett isn’t getting a boner at all. He’s got bigger things to worry about than the hot guy who’s taken him in off the street and is kind of intensely frightening.

“I’m just trying to eat my breakfast, dude,” Liam says. “This is where we eat. We don’t have a dining table or anything like that.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Brett breathes.

“You apologise a lot.”

“… Sorry.”

One of the doors just off the living room opens, and Hayden steps out, yawning sleepily. She’s wearing pink pyjama pants and a fluffy robe with French bulldogs all over it.

“Morning, Li,” she says sleepily, kissing Liam’s head. He makes a vague grumbling noise. “Morning, Brett.”

“Hi.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“Really well. Thanks for taking me in. Might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“We’re glad to help,” she says with a smile, and Liam rolls his eyes. “Even Liam, although he can’t admit that because otherwise he’ll lose muscle mass and turn into a girl… so he seems to think, anyway.”

Liam huffs and stands up, taking his cereal into the kitchen. Hayden turns to watch him, grinning the whole time.

“Is he okay?” Brett asks hesitantly.

“What, Liam? Yeah, he’s fine. I just like getting him riled up. He knows I’m playing.” She raises her voice a little. “Right, Li-Li?”

“Fuck you,” Liam’s moody voice replies from the kitchen. Hayden laughs - a bright, delighted sound that Brett hasn’t heard in a long time.

“So,” Hayden says to Brett, sitting on the couch with him, “we kind of thought that today, you could stay here. Mason will be home all day, and Liam will be home at three. You can get cleaned up and shower and maybe do some laundry if you need to. Liam’s gonna drive you by the shelter tonight.”

He’s just remembered he’s not staying. “Liam’s driving me?” he asks.

Liam, who’s just exited the kitchen, glares. “I can drive,” he mutters snappishly.

“I know, I know,” Brett says, backpedalling frantically. “I just, uh, don’t wanna put you out or anything.”

Liam watches him for a moment, and then his face crumples into an irritated expression before he leaves the room. He’s already dressed, Brett realises. “How’re you gonna get home from work?” he asks Hayden.

“Oh, Mason’s gonna come get me.”

“Mason can’t take me to the shelter?” Brett mumbles.

Hayden leans forward. “I know Liam’s kind of rough,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. He doesn’t do well with change. He’s being pretty civil, if it’s any consolation.”

“It isn’t.”

“Anyway, we didn’t force him. He volunteered.”

Brett thinks maybe Liam’s going to kill him and toss him into a ditch or something, but he keeps that thought private. Hayden might be friendly, but Liam clearly means a lot to her, and Brett knows that if it comes down to it, she’ll choose him, not Brett.

Brett wonders what it would be like to be someone’s priority. He doesn’t want to think about it too much though, what with everything else going on.

Liam exits his bedroom and shuts the door. “See you at work,” he calls to Hayden. “Bye.”

That last part, Brett realises, is directed at him. “Bye,” he says hurriedly.

Liam waves over his shoulder and shuts the door. Hayden smiles at Brett a little.

“I’ll get you a towel,” she says.

~*~

Brett spends the day doing what Hayden suggested - getting laundry done, showering, shaving. Trying to get his life in order when the pieces are so shattered they’re essentially dust.

Eventually, with all his laundry done and dry - it’s nice of them to let him use the dryer - he settles in the living room. Mason’s sitting at the coffee table, tapping away quickly on his laptop; he looks up when Brett comes in.

Brett holds his hands up. “I’m not going to steal anything,” he says softly.

“Sorry, dude,” Mason says. “I’m like this with anyone they bring home.”

“They bring back homeless people regularly?” Brett asks slowly.

“No. Just people in general. Dates, or whatever it is Liam does. Sex, I guess. They’re always gone in the morning.”

Sounds healthy, Brett reflects, but hey, Liam’s getting laid and he’s not. He’s got no room to judge, really.

“Sorry,” he says, instead of addressing what Mason said about Liam. “I know it’s kind of a drag to have me around.”

Mason looks pained. “It’s… not you, dude. Just wish they’d both be careful, y'know? Their hearts bleed for every stray they come across… human or not.”

“Liam has a heart?”

“He’s actually got a pretty big heart,” Mason confirms. “He just hides it from people until he knows them really, really well. He’s not all that shy, just reserved.”

“And Hayden?”

“Hayden’s different. She says there’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable or letting people see how kind you are. Liam thinks kindness - to people at least - is a recipe for disaster. Between her idealism and his pessimism, they make a good team at the shelter.”

“So… that leaves you as the realist?” Brett asks.

“Yup. That’s me. Hayden sees a struggling, helpless street kid, and I see someone who probably needs a leg up… who we don’t know, who could still rob us.” He shakes his head, looking bemused. “Usually Liam would be on my side. But he seems to want you to stay.”

“What gives you that impression?” Brett mutters.

“He didn’t say otherwise. He would have. If that’s how he felt.”

Liam arrives home just past three, as promised. Brett feels like the time is flying; there’s four hours left until he has to go back to the shelter and doesn’t have a plan. He supposes he could keep going back to the cafe… but he doesn’t have money and Liam and Hayden can’t keep gifting him coffee, especially not if the cost comes out of their own paychecks.

“Yo, dude,” Mason says, and they slap hands briefly as Liam enters, dumping his bag. “How is it out there?”

“It’s a fucking wasteland.”

“… So you wouldn’t recommend going for a run?”

“Not unless you want your dick to freeze off,” Liam mutters, shedding a scarf and his gloves. “Which I’m pretty sure mine has, for the record.”

Mason grins. “Want me to check?”

Liam rolls his eyes. “Oh, fuck off,” he says, but he sounds amused. “Hey, Brett.”

The shift in tone when he addresses Brett is palpable, but at least he didn’t pretend Brett’s not there. “Hi,” Brett says, sniffling a little.

“You have a shower?”

“Yeah. Um, Hayden loaned me one of your towels, sorry for-”

“Dude, don’t stress. We’ll wash it.” Liam yawns. “Eat something.”

With that, he’s heading down the hall and shutting the bathroom door. Brett hears the fan switch on, then the water run.

“He’s being really nice,” Mason says, sounding surprised.

“That’s nice?”

“You should see him mean, dude.”

Mason goes back to his laptop after that; Brett watches TV, goes on his Facebook. His mom has an account, and she’s posting like nothing happened. He tries not to let that get to him. He fails spectacularly.

The bathroom door opens; Liam walks out with a towel around his waist and nothing else on. Brett’s mouth goes dry; Liam’s got an incredibly muscular back, wide shoulders, and narrow hips, visible muscles in his upper arms. Brett looks away before he can possibly get hard. Somehow, he thinks that would lead to him getting his ass kicked.

When Liam re-emerges from his bedroom, he’s wearing a white version of the henley he had on this morning and worn, faded blue jeans. He slumps onto the couch and flicks the TV on, switching channels before settling for the news.

They all sit like that for a while. An hour passes without them saying anything. Jelly jumps onto the couch with remarkable grace for a cat so obese, settles on Liam’s stomach, and begins kneading it with his claws. Liam grunts in pain, winces, but makes no move to shove the cat off him.

_Definite soft spot for animals_ , Brett thinks. _Guess he has to have a soft spot for something._

When it gets to four thirty, Liam sighs, moves Jelly, and stands up. “Want something to eat?” he asks.

“No thanks,” Mason murmurs. “I might go to the library.”

Liam looks at Brett expectantly.

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll make you something.”

“Good luck,” Mason says lightly. “He’s a shit cook.”

“Fuck you, Mase,” Liam chuckles.

Mason stands up and starts getting his things together. “Hey,” he says to Brett. “No hard feelings, yeah? Good luck.”

Brett nods, his throat feeling inexplicably tight. If he were alone, he’d probably be sobbing by now. “Thanks.”

Mason leaves. Liam’s in the kitchen, clanging around with pots and pans. Jelly waddles over to Brett and rubs up against him, purring like a motorboat. Brett strokes the cat’s back, wishing he wasn’t perpetually on the cusp of tears. It’s exhausting, it’s embarrassing, and he’s currently stuck with the person who seems to like him the least.

Brett hugs the cat. Jelly purrs happily. Brett’s never really liked cats much, but it’s nice to have something warm and alive to snuggle up to. He used to hug his mom and sister every night before bed. Now Lori’s being told not to talk to him and neither of his parents seem to care about how he’s doing.

“Here.”

Brett looks up, blinking back tears frantically. Liam’s putting a plate down in front of him - scrambled eggs with red pepper, spinach, and ham in them. It smells delicious.

“Thanks,” he says softly.

“No problem. If you want anything, just go ahead.”

Brett nods. He eats, even though he’s not hungry, and forces himself to finish. By the time he has, it’s past five, and he’s starting to get heart palpitations from the nerves. It was all well and good to not go back to the shelter last night, but that makes returning today even worse. He knows he should just be grateful to not have to sleep on the streets, but…

But the beds are cold and impersonal, they smell kind of strange, and there’s so many people in the room it’s hard to drift off. People stare like they can tell he’s fresh meat. They probably can. Apart from that, Brett doesn’t have a plan at all. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Two hours from now, everything’s going to change again, and it feels like too much.

He goes into the bathroom quietly - Liam’s in his bedroom, he thinks; the door is shut firmly - and manages to splash his face with water before he’s sitting down on the toilet seat and trying not to hyperventilate. He’s never had a panic attack before, but that’s straight where he’s headed, and that, on top of everything else, is what has tears coursing down his cheeks. He almost wants to beg them not to make him leave, even though he knows he can’t do that.

When he finally exits the bathroom, it’s twenty past six. Liam’s standing in the living room, and when Brett exits, he looks away sharply.

He knows. Brett’s heart sinks; he tried putting cold water on his eyes, but Liam must know what was happening in there. Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything about it; he just grabs Hayden’s car keys from the bowl next to the front door and says, “Do you need help with your bags?”

Brett swallows, shakes his head. “I’m - no. Thanks anyway.” He grabs his things and follows Liam out the front door.

Liam’s setting his phone to the address of the shelter when Brett gets in the car. Again, he doesn’t say anything about Brett’s meltdown, and again, Brett’s endlessly grateful to him for it.

They drive in awkward silence for almost twenty minutes. There’s music playing softly, so soft Brett can barely make it out. Liam’s paying close attention to the GPS, which is mounted to the windscreen.

“Sooo,” Liam says slowly. “You… got a plan, or…?”

Brett smiles shakily. “The plan is sort of to just get to the shelter. That’s the plan. After that, I don’t know.”

Liam’s silent for a moment. Then, “You’ll work something out.”

“I’m glad one of us is confident in that,” Brett murmurs, feeling like he’s about to burst into tears at any moment. He’s not going to; Liam’s sitting right next to him and Liam doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s ever shed a tear in his life. Brett doesn’t want to look like an idiot.

Liam shrugs. He looks uncomfortable, tense. “You’re smart. College boy, right?”

Brett nods.

“You’ll work something out. People like you are never in the system long.”

“Why not?” Brett asks.

Liam shrugs. “You’re either resourceful enough to figure something out or you end up going back home and pretending nothing ever happened because you can’t cut it on your own. Seen it plenty of times.”

“I’m not going back there,” Brett says heatedly.

Liam looks surprised at his tone. “Hey, never said it was a bad thing. Sometimes you just gotta… swallow your pride and do what you gotta do. That means hiding who you are sometimes, you know?”

“I’m not. I can’t.”

Liam nods like he gets it. “Okay.”

Brett feels like he needs to explain himself, even though Liam seems to actually get what he’s saying and not at all like he’s pretending. “I can’t,” he repeats again. “I’ve done everything they wanted me to my whole life. This is the only time I’ve ever really done what I wanted.”

“Come out?”

“Yeah.”

“So how’d you know? You ever had sex with a guy?”

Brett can feel himself going red. Something about the way Liam asks - with genuine curiosity in his voice - makes it seem different than just a run of the mill question. “No. Just girls. And I just know. That sounds stupid, but-”

“Mason’s gay,” Liam says. “He just knew. It makes sense. I don’t care if you’re bi. Plenty of people won’t.” Before Brett can reply, he says, “So, what’d you study?”

“You can’t laugh at me.”

“Why the fuck would I laugh at you, dude? Spill.”

“I was studying to be a nurse,” Brett says softly. “I didn’t have long left, and now it might never happen.”

Liam shakes his head. “Can’t give up on it like that. It’ll happen. Might take you longer to get there, but it will. We need more nurses and doctors and shit. Even if you do what I do, you know, just take whatever classes you can afford.”

Brett nods. Just because it’s not going the way he planned it doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

“Okay.” Liam throws the car in park. “Ready?”

Not really. “Yeah. Thanks for the ride.”

“I’m coming in with you, dude.”

He doesn’t protest. He’s grateful not to be alone, even if Liam is kind of salty and grumpy. Liam even takes one of his bags as they head into the shelter.

The lobby is cold, and the woman behind the counter seems more concerned with snapping her gum than anything else. Liam strides up to the counter confidently, like he hasn’t got a care in the world.

“Hey,” he says.

She looks up. “Can I help you?”

“Well, kinda, yeah. Here for a bed?”

She sighs. “Mmhm, you would be,” she says with an eyeroll. Liam frowns at her like he’s confused, but doesn’t say anything. “Let me check the books and I’ll get back to you.”

Liam turns to Brett. “Piece of cake,” he says. “You’ll be alright.” He sounds like he might be trying to convince them both of that. “Pretty white college boy with no criminal history? Walk in the park getting out of here.”

“We’re full up,” the woman says.

“Huh?” Brett asks “Full up?”

“Too many people, kid. The beds are all taken.” Her eyes drift over Liam, focussing on the strip of colour in his hair. “You might wanna prioritise food over self-expression, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“Thanks, but we’re not here for me,” Liam says sourly. “I’m dropping him off.”

“And who are you?”

“Stranger. Said I’d bring him here. That okay?”

She scowls at him. “I’ll check the other shelters. Wouldn’t hurt y'all to have some damn manners though.”

With that, she’s on the phone. They stand in the lobby in awkward, strained silence. Liam’s not his friend, and Brett knows that, but it feels odd that he’s slept in Liam’s apartment with his friends and doesn’t even know his last name.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

Liam stares at him.

“Your last name,” Brett hurries to say.

“Dunbar,” Liam says. “Add me on Facebook. Ignore the memes. You ever need anything, shoot me a message.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

Brett pulls out his phone and types in Liam’s name. The picture that comes up is of Liam, his arms wound around three golden retrievers. He’s even smiling. Brett remembers that he and Hayden volunteer in animal shelters.

“Wholesome picture,” he comments. “I like it.” He hits the add friend button and pockets his phone again.

“Yeah,” Liam says. “Hayden took it. Buster, Jemima, and Whiplash.”

“Whiplash? Sounds like some kind of kinky BDSM shit.”

To his surprise, Liam laughs. The lady at the desk gives them a dirty look. “No,” Liam says, still smiling faintly. “We called him Whiplash because of how hard he wagged his tail. Thing was like a deadly weapon or something.”

The woman slides back the panel across the desk. “Shelters are all full up, kid,” she says.

“What?” Brett asks.

“They’re full. It’s winter. Plenty of people just tryna get out of the cold. Just like you.” She sighs. “Might have to kip at the police station tonight.”

“The police station?” Brett demands. “What-”

“Illegal to be a vagrant, you know?” she asks. “They’ll catch you anyway.”

Brett turns to Liam, hoping the woman’s just fucking with him because they made a joke. But Liam looks put out, serious - sombre.

“She’s right,” he says quietly. “They do enforce vagrancy laws around here a lot. You’ll get fined. Probably not much more because you’re a pretty white boy, but they won’t let you off easy.”

“Listen to your friend,” she advises. “Hey, that colour in your hair - how’d you do that?”

“I, uh, my roommate did it,” Liam says, sounding confused. “Look, is there anywhere else? He can’t stay outside. He’ll get arrested and it’s too cold anyway.”

“That ain’t my problem,” the lady says. “Sorry, kid. But everywhere’s full up and unless he has money, he’s gonna have to risk the street or go to the coppers.”

Brett swallows. His ears are ringing. The shelter wasn’t great, but it was shelter, and now he’s lost his spot - probably for a while, what with it being winter - and he has nowhere else left to go.

“Brett.”

He looks down. Liam’s staring up at him. “C'mon,” he says.

“Where?” Brett asks helplessly, his voice breaking.

Liam might look a little sympathetic, or it might be Brett’s imagination, but it hardly matters. Liam tugs his sleeve and they step out into the cold of the street; Brett’s not dressed for the weather, and he shivers. He really needed a warmer coat for this part of town.

Liam drags him into the first clothing store they see. “You need a jacket,” he says shortly. “What size are you?”

“I - huh?”

“Try this on.” Liam pushes a thick, heavy winter coat at him.

“I can’t afford-”

“Fuck’s sake, dude, I’m buying. You want a jacket or a three hundred dollar doctor’s visit? Try it on.”

Brett tries it on while they’re standing there. It fits him well, with room underneath for a sweater or something. “I can’t pay you back,” he says helplessly. “I don’t have any money.”

Liam sighs. “We’ll work something out. Like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. C'mon.”

“Can you afford-”

“Yep.”

Brett lets Liam pay, his skin crawling with the idea that he’s so completely in debt with Liam he’ll never crawl his way out, that Liam’s probably really pissed off that he couldn’t offload Brett to a shelter as planned - that he’s still carrying most of Brett’s stuff.

“Thank you,” Brett says as they step out into the street.

Liam looks at him and sighs. “No problem.” He doesn’t actually seem mad; just annoyed.

“I know it’s inconvenient. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not ticked off with you, man. What kinda - you know what, never mind. If I think about it my head’s gonna explode.” He rubs his face. “Alright. I told Hayds and Mase that I’d pick up shit for dinner, so we’re doing that next.”

“And then what?”

“And then we’re going home,” Liam says. “What else?”

“We?”

“Yes. We.”

“But I-”

Liam turns to him. Snow settles on his hair and nose; he licks his lips. “Listen,” he says. “I know I’m a prick. But I’m not fucking heartless and there’s no way I’m leaving you on the fucking street when it’s sub-zero. That’d be really legitimately fucked up. And I’m not dragging you to the cop station because you haven’t done anything wrong but taking you down there’ll make 'em think you did. So you’re coming home with me.”

“Hayden and Mason-”

“Will fucking deal.”

Brett doesn’t know what to say. He follows Liam into the grocery store and watches, feeling a thousand miles away from his body, as Liam picks up zucchini, pasta, sauce, onion, and meat. At the counter, Liam also throws in some power bars.

“You don’t have to do this,” Brett croaks to him, and fuck. He’s crying in the middle of fucking Wholefoods with about a half-dozen middle-aged women staring at him curiously.

Liam turns to him. “People are gonna think I’m breaking up with you,” he says, fishing in his pocket and pulling out a pack of tissues. “Here. And I’m already doing it, so buck up and help me carry everything.”

Brett sort of laughs. Liam’s not exactly comforting in the way Brett’s come to expect from people, but he’s comforting in his own odd way - in the way he refuses to let Brett’s tears drag him down too, and insists that they just go about their lives. When Liam passes him some of the bags, it gives him something to do - something to think about.

Liam cranks the heat on the way home. They drive in silence; Liam only occasionally swears as lights go orange upon approach and people swerve out in front of him. He’s a pretty good driver, really. Better than what Brett’s used to.

“What are you gonna tell Hayden and Mason?” he asks softly.

“The truth, what else? That I took you to the shelter and there were no beds and nowhere else to go. They won’t kick you out.”

“Won’t they?”

Liam purses his lips. “I’ll vouch for you. Just let me handle them, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“And stop thanking me. Making me feel like Jesus or some shit.”

“Jesus had better hair.”

“Fuck off he did. By the way, do you cook?”

Brett nods. “I’m a pretty good cook,” he says quietly.

“Awesome.”

The rest of the drive is quiet. When they pull up, Brett gets his things from the boot of the car and follows Liam up the steps and into the elevator. Liam’s phone rings; he takes it out of his pocket, sees the name, and scowls, declining the call.

Brett doesn’t ask. Clearly it’s not a happy subject.

Liam unlocks the apartment door and steps inside. “Got dinner stuff,” he calls.

“Awesome,” Mason says. “What took you so long, dude? We-”

He stops short. Both he and Hayden look shocked to see Brett standing behind Liam - and there was no way they wouldn’t, what with Liam being the size of a fucking elf.

“Liam?” Hayden asks slowly.

Liam sighs. “Look,” he says. “I took him to the shelter, okay? The beds were all full. Lady at the desk called around - every shelter in the city is full up. Turns out there’s some sorta pecking order or some shit. Said that his best bet was either to brave the streets or go to the police station.”

“So you brought him back here?” Mason demands.

“Jesus Christ, Mase, I couldn’t-” Liam’s eyes cut to Brett briefly. “Look, it’s cold. It’s fucking snowing. I wasn’t gonna leave him out there. And you know what’d happen if he slept on the streets - the cops would find him and fine him for vagrancy and if I took him to the police station they’d treat him like a criminal.”

“He didn’t steal anything last night,” Hayden points out quietly.

“Exactly. And apparently he’s a really good cook.”

“… What’s that got to do with-”

“So if he hangs out here he can’t pay rent, obviously, because he doesn’t have a job,” Liam says. “But he can cook. Maybe clean up a bit.” He turns to Brett. “Sound good?”

Brett nods quickly.

“See?”

“He’s not Cinderella, Liam.”

“He’s blonde enough.”

Hayden snorts back laughter; even Mason smiles at that. “So,” he says. “Another night here, huh?”

“Sorry,” Brett says. “I know it’s inconvenient. Thank you for taking me in, though, it means a lot. You guys have been nicer to me than my own parents were.”

Hayden and Mason’s eyes dart towards Liam, who’s standing beside him, and then back to Brett. “No problem,” Hayden says, standing up. “I guess I’ll get all the bedding back out. And find you another towel. I’m sorry we don’t have more than the couch.”

“The couch is great,” Brett says quickly. “Thanks.”

Hayden brings all the blankets and pillows back, stacks them at the end of the couch. “We usually do board games on Friday nights,” she says kindly. “You don’t have to join us, but you can if you want.”

“What’re we playing?” Brett asks.

“Monopoly,” Mason says, shuddering dramatically.

“Why is that-”

“Don’t sit next to Liam,” Hayden interrupts.

Brett looks to Liam, who’s sitting next to him with an innocent expression. “Why not?” he asks slowly. He’s definitely not opposed to being close to Liam - the guy’s fucking gorgeous, and even though he’s intense to a degree that’s almost frightening, Brett’s drawn to him, to his energy. He doesn’t want to sit anywhere else. And Liam vouched for him, which has eased Brett’s reservations about him… slightly, anyway.

“Liam’s fucking ruthless,” Mason says. “We aren’t joking. He’s stone-cold when you play board games with him.”

Brett smiles a little. “Well, this is Monopoly, not Uno. I’ll take my chances.”

Liam looks at him and smiles, and Brett’s heart does this weird squeezing motion as it shoots up into his throat. _He liked that,_ he realises. _He liked me saying that._

Mason and Hayden weren’t kidding. Liam plays absolutely ruthlessly, and the game - which is normally so long Brett throws in the towel - is over within the hour, with Liam owning most of the properties and money.

“You should be a real estate agent,” Brett murmurs. “Damn, I’ve never seen anyone clean up so fast in Monopoly before.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Hayden sighs as Liam grins triumphantly. “Dinner?”

They have dinner late. Liam, Hayden and Mason are halfway through watching the first season of Orange Is The New Black - Brett’s seen it, but he’s happy to be included when they all hunker down on the couch with their food.

Liam made dinner, and it tastes amazing. Brett’s never had zucchini in his pasta before, but he finds himself enjoying it. They have some kind of chilled sweet tea too, which they don’t seem to mind sharing.

Hayden retires as soon as the episode is over; Mason stays for half an hour before going to shower. Liam’s still up. A similar pattern happened the night before; Hayden seems to go to bed the earliest, followed by Mason, with Liam retiring around eleven, but not actually sleeping until well past midnight. Brett kind of wonders what he’s doing, but he’s not curious enough to ask. And it’s not really any of his business anyway.

By ten, it’s just him and Liam in the living room. Liam looks content; he’s curled up on the couch with Jelly sleeping on his stomach again, and he looks drowsy himself. Still, he flicks through the channels until he finally finds something worth watching, then settles.

Brett takes his laptop out. Decides not to open Facebook. He logs into Steam and begins to try and distract himself with Don’t Starve, which usually works.

Liam’s phone rings on the coffee table. He picks it up, looks at the caller ID, and declines the call, expression stormy. Brett carefully doesn’t look at him; it’s none of Brett’s business whose calls Liam’s screening.

“What’s that?”

Brett looks over. Liam’s watching him sleepily.

“Don’t Starve.” Brett turns his laptop so Liam can see it. “Have you played it?”

Liam shakes his head.

“Oh. You just… well, it’s all in the title, really. The aim is to just not starve. You get dumped in this world and you have to use all the resources to not die and not get killed by any of the wildlife.”

“Sounds hardcore,” Liam says. “How many times have you died?”

“Too many to count,” Brett admits, and Liam smiles. “I’m pretty bad at it.” He moves over. “You wanna play?”

He fully expected Liam to say no, so he’s surprised when Liam shifts Jelly and slides off the couch to sit next to him. Brett starts a new game, making sure everything is set to the regular settings. It can’t be too easy.

“How do I move?” Liam asks.

“Not a PC gamer, huh?”

“Not really.”

“WASD. Click to pick things or attack. Don’t attack things yet though, you’ve only got your fists and-”

“What the fuck is that?” Liam demands. Brett peers at the screen - he’s stumbled across a catcoon within the first five minutes of playing.

“That’s a catcoon.”

“It’s so fucking cute. Can I pat it?”

“You can’t really pat it. You can feed it meat if you find some. But you should probably feed yourself first.”

“How do I do that?”

Brett points. “Pick that bush. It’ll give you berries.”

“I don’t want berries, I want meat.”

“You could kill the catcoon. That’ll give you meat.”

Liam looks visibly horrified. “I have to kill it?”

“You don’t have to kill it. You can be an opportunistic buzzard and just collect the remains of the wars between Pigmen and spiders.”

“Pig-what?”

“Pigmen. There’s one!”

“… Do they bite?”

“Only on the full moon.”

Brett spends the next half hour trying to explain the game to Liam - but Liam’s got a remarkably short attention span and keeps getting himself into trouble, first by not building a fire, then by attacking a Beefalo.

“You’re terrible,” Brett sighs.

“I’m better on PS4.”

“Uh huh. Sure.”

Liam smiles a little and stands up. “I’m gonna go to bed,” he says. “Got work tomorrow.”

“Alright. Hey, Liam.”

Liam turns back to him curiously.

“Thank you,” Brett says quietly. “For bringing me back here.”

Liam shrugs. “Didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have,” he says. “But you’re welcome. Night.”

“Night.”

Brett retires pretty soon after. He stares at the light fixture contemplatively; Jelly sleeps at his side.

One more night. He’s somehow managed to stay here for one more night. Things are going to be okay, at least for the next eight or nine hours - however long he sleeps.

And then it’s back to the shelter. He’s only postponing the inevitable. And how’s he ever gonna repay Liam for the jacket? It wasn’t all that cheap. He saw the price tag on it.

He closes his eyes, tries not to think about it. He’s got another twenty four borrowed hours, and that’s going to have to be enough.

~*~

The problem with being insanely, undeniably attracted to Liam is that every time he makes progress talking to Liam and they go to sleep, Liam wakes up the next morning seeming to have forgotten what transpired the day before.

It’s like he’s a faulty save file on a game; he doesn’t remember any fondness or genuine warmth they’d shared in the days before. That makes getting close to Liam exceedingly difficult.

Not that he’s really trying to get close. Still, it’s a little confusing to sit together and play video games and, less than twenty four hours later, have Liam revert back to his initial reserved behaviour.

The second day goes much the same way as the first. Hayden and Liam go to work, and Mason to class. Brett stays in the living room unless he needs to use the bathroom or eat, despite the fact that he never grew out of his childlike desire to see other peoples’ bedrooms. He doesn’t want them to have a reason not to trust him.

That night, Hayden drives him to the shelter. Brett kind of wishes it was Liam again. He feels attracted to Liam, drawn to him - wants to be around him and listen to him talk, even though nothing will eventuate from it. Brett’s never been one to dip his toes into relationships. He either stays away or dives right in.

The shelter’s full up again. This time, there’s no debate; Hayden turns to him with a smile and says, “I bet Liam and Mason haven’t packed the couch up yet,” and begins to make her way back to the car. Brett follows. Secretly, he’s relieved.

Mason’s surprised to see them, and he gives Hayden an exasperated look, but Liam doesn’t seem shocked at all. He shuffles over to clear a space at the coffee table for Brett and says, “There’s leftovers from last night,” and that alone feels almost like a welcome home.

Hayden encourages him to load up his plate and pours him some of the tea from the night before. Brett takes up his spot next to Liam, who’s eating with his left hand and tapping away at his laptop with his right. It doesn’t look very safe for the laptop.

“What’re you writing?” Brett asks. God, he really wants to talk to Liam - even though Liam doesn’t seem talkative, even though Brett doesn’t know the first thing about Liam’s interests or how to engage him in conversation.

Liam saves his work. “Research design on the clinical manifestations of obsessive compulsive disorder in teenagers.”

Brett doesn’t think he’s ever been so turned on by such a boring sentence. “What’s that involve?” he asks.

“I gotta design the actual research plan. Like, you know - method, participants, measuring all the IV’s and DV’s, the hypothesis, oh, I need to design participant feedback surveys and do the plain language statement too. It’s kinda cool actually because see here? This table? The professors provide all the research for you so you just have to focus on the actual layout and bones of the whole thing instead of the guts as well, if you get what I mean. I don’t have to talk to anyone. It’s sweet.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Brett murmurs - it is, in a way. Mason and Hayden are both staring at him, grinning, as if they know he’s just realised he’s opened a can of worms… a really book-smart can of worms. “So what’ve you got so far?”

“Reckon I’m gonna plan out a longitudinal cohort study,” Liam murmurs, pulling up a separate file. “Combined with an observational study. Because otherwise you’d be manipulating their data by exposing them to psychological help or not, and I can’t do that because I already have the data.”

“And what’s a longitudinal study, Liam?” Hayden teases.

Liam blinks. “Oh. I didn’t realise you guys were here.” Before Hayden can speak, looking indignant, he continues, “you know how sometimes they catch birds and tag 'em and then let 'em go to see where they fly and shit? That’s basically what a longitudinal study is. You just check in every couple of weeks or months or whenever.”

“You just compared human beings to pigeons, Liam,” Mason says.

Liam widens his eyes a little, raising his eyebrows. “Well, there’s a lot that can be said about that comparison. Personally I think pigeons are more useful than people, but-”

“Liam, you can’t say that,” Hayden giggles.

“Pigeons will fly for days to carry a fucking message and then go home again!” Liam says heatedly. “Humans don’t even remember to text you back!”

Brett laughs at that, which leaves Liam looking pleased. Hayden and Mason both make noises that reach varying degrees of exasperation and amusement; this has to be an argument they’ve heard before.

Liam stabs his food moodily. “He thinks I’m funny,” he mutters, jerking his thumb at Brett.

_I think you’re gorgeous_ , Brett muses, but doesn’t say it aloud. He’s not quite sure why he’s trying to get to know Liam… he only knows that he can’t help it, and that the desire to learn more about him and be near him currently greatly outweighs the common sense that tells him there’s no universe in which he’s got a shot with Liam. He supposes this is a textbook way to go about getting your heart broken.

And he knows, deep down, he’s going to let it happen.

~*~

The next two days are the same.

The daytime routine varies a little - a rotation of people going to work or college or out on dates - but the night routine is the same. Everyone is home by seven at the latest, and they all sit down, eat together, play board games or card games - and Hayden was absolutely right when she said Liam was fucking ruthless; Brett doesn’t care how hot the guy is, he’s not sitting next to him in a game of Uno again - and then watch an episode of Orange Is The New Black.

They go to the shelter at seven PM sharp every day. The shelter’s always taken. By the time they get to the fourth night, Liam walks in with him, gets an irritated head shake from the lady behind the desk, turns on his heel, and leaves.

On the fourth day staying with them, Brett gets a headache he can’t quite shake. The fifth day brings a sore throat. By the time he wakes up on the sixth day, he’s coughing, sniffling, and running a low-grade fever.

He doesn’t want to let on that he’s sick - because seriously, these people have taken him in and now he goes contagious on them? That’s the only thing that could make it worse. Still, he looks like shit, and Hayden seems to hone in on what’s wrong within ten minutes of joining Brett in the living room.

“Are you sick?” she asks sympathetically.

Brett sniffles. “Maybe.”

She reaches out and puts a hand on his forehead. The way she touches him, so casually, makes his eyes burn and throat tighten. He misses physical affection. Maybe it’s worth being sick if this is how she’s gonna check his temperature.

“Yeah,” she says. “You feel kinda warm. I’m sorry, I don’t think we have anything.”

“It’s okay,” he coughs. “Just a cold. It’ll pass.”

“Cold?”

Brett and Hayden turn; Liam’s standing in the doorway, yawning, glasses barely perched on his nose. He looks ruffled. “You sick?” he asks.

“Guess so.”

“Sucks,” Liam says simply, then goes to the kitchen. Hayden rolls her eyes; Brett kind of wishes Liam would pay him the same attention that Hayden did, but Brett hasn’t seen him initiate contact with Hayden or Mason - only reciprocate what they initiate. He knows he’s not gonna get that.

Mason joins them soon after. Even though Brett’s sick, they still all gather around the coffee table - drinking tea and instant coffee sleepily, for warmth. Liam perches on the arm of the couch, a plate of toast balanced precariously on his thigh.

Brett coughs. He can barely swallow, his throat hurts so badly. Hayden rubs his back sympathetically, sitting close to him.

“You okay?” she asks.

“On top of everything, I had to get sick,” Brett groans.

“It’s the cortisol,” Liam says, his voice muffled by toast.

They all turn to him. “What?” Brett sniffles.

Liam swallows and sticks another bit of bread in the toaster. “It’s the cortisol,” he says again. “Your adrenal gland makes it when you’re stressed. It raises your blood sugar levels, and boosts your immune response - burns fat fast too. But the thing is, right, that even though it kinda suppresses your immune response for a while so you don’t get sick, it also kinda weakens it. So once you stop being stressed and stop making cortisol suddenly you’re like a breeding ground for colds and shit.”

Hayden’s smiling. “Thanks, Liam.”

Liam shrugs.

“How’d you know that?” Brett asks.

Liam arches an eyebrow. “You think this means I’m dumb?” he asks, pointing at the strip of purple in his hair.

“No, no,” Brett backpedals. “I just didn’t think, um-”

“I take classes, remember?” Liam asks.

“Right, shit, uh, I didn’t mean to offend you or anything,” Brett rushes to say.

Mason laughs. “He’s just being hard on you, dude,” he chuckles. “Don’t stress.”

But Liam looks deathly serious as he stares at Brett, not quite challenging, but assessing. Maybe he’s trying to work out whether Brett’s being truthful or not. His gaze is unnervingly still… and Brett can’t help but think about how really, ridiculously hot Liam is, especially after having spouted off all that scientific stuff.

“What are you studying?” he asks weakly.

“Psychology,” Liam says. “I only take two classes a semester.”

Brett nods; Liam seems to have softened a little, which is an absolute relief.

“Go easy on him,” Hayden scolds. “He’s sick.”

“God, he’s not dying,” Liam mumbles through a mouthful of toast. “Here.” He pushes his plate towards Brett. “Toast is good for your stomach,” he mumbles. “Complex carbs are hardest to vomit up. I got class.” With that, he stands up and strides to the door, grabbing his jacket on the way.

“Don’t worry,” Hayden says. “It’s not that he dislikes you. He’s just kind of socially inept.”

“He seems mad,” Brett says uneasily.

“No, dude,” Mason says, shaking his head. “You gotta get it. Liam wants to be nice, but he thinks being nice is a weakness, so when he accidentally ends up being nice, he follows it up with something mean. He doesn’t mean to do it. He’ll stop it after a while. He just doesn’t know any other way.”

“Why doesn’t he get help for it?” Brett asks, confused.

Mason and Hayden look at each other sadly. “Does it look like any of us have the money to get any of the help we might need?” Hayden asks gently. “We make enough to eat, pay rent, and then save some. Pay for some medications. Not anything on top of that. Psychiatrists are expensive. He can’t afford that. Neither can we.”

Brett nods slowly.

“Besides, he’s working on it,” Hayden says. “Trying to anyway. You might help with that, actually.”

“Huh? How?”

“You don’t snap back at him,” Mason says. “That makes it a thousand times worse. Just kind of reinforces that he’s right not to be good to anyone, you know? He’s not an asshole or anything, he’s a good guy, he’s just…”

“… Struggling,” Hayden finishes quietly. “Like everyone else, except Liam struggles outwardly.”

Some people wear their hurts on the outside instead of the inside, Brett reminds himself. He remembers, now, a quote from a book he read in his senior year of high school - _“but some people can’t tell where it hurts. They can’t calm down. They can’t ever stop howling.”_

He shivers, thinking about that. As much as he doesn’t really know Liam from any other person in the street, it would be a horrible way to live - in pain, constantly, and lashing out from frustration and fear.

“But he’s doing well,” Hayden says, forcedly cheerful. “You know? He hardly ever really lashes out anymore. You don’t have anything to worry about. And he was nice about the chopsticks the other night, which-”

“Never seen him be like that before,” Mason interrupts. “Look, we know - it’s like fucking whiplash when he switches. But he’ll do it less and it won’t be as bad. Then he’ll probably apologise for it. In his own weird way.”

Brett’s not convinced of that, but sure. If they say so. “Okay,” he says.

Mason has work, and Hayden’s going to see her boyfriend, which means Brett’s alone. He drinks some tea, but he’s not very hungry, and he’s running a low-grade fever. He’s kind of trying to doze off on the couch, watching TV, when the front door opens.

It’s just past lunchtime; Brett’s head jerks up, despite the fact that it’s pounding fit to burst.

Liam holds his hands up. “Just me.”

“Hey,” Brett breathes thickly. “Thought you had class?”

“I did. Just one today.” Liam fishes in his pocket and tosses something to Brett.

Brett catches it. “What’s this?” he asks slowly.

“It’s for your cold,” Liam mutters, toeing his shoes off. Brett looks down at the box - sure enough, it’s generic-brand cold and flu medicine. Which means Liam deliberately stopped at a pharmacy - maybe the convenience store across the road - to get it for him.

“Thank you,” Brett murmurs, surprised. “How much do I owe you?”

Liam frowns at him. “It’s a gift, stupid.”

“A… gift?”

“Yeah.” Brett opens his mouth to say something else, but Liam’s heading down the hallway and shutting the door to his bedroom.

Brett takes two of the tablets, feeling confused and - well, a little afraid, honestly. Liam got him drugs, but he seems pretty cranky about doing it, which… well, what’s Brett supposed to make of that?

It’s only half an hour later that he remembers what Mason said - that Liam would apologise for being snappish in his own weird way. He looks at the box on the coffee table and suddenly, strangely, feels like he’s been given a bunch of roses or something.

The drugs have started to work a little when Hayden gets home. She’s pink with the cold, but smiling as she steps in.

“Hi,” she says. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” Brett says, then holds up the box. “Liam gave me these.”

Hayden looks pretty stunned. “He bought you cold medicine?”

“Yeah. Is this what Mason meant about weird apologies?”

“Yeah,” Hayden says.

Liam’s bedroom door opens, and he steps out, pursued by Jelly, who’s meowing loudly. Liam’s actually grinning as he heads to the kitchen and grabs some cat treats down from the top of the microwave - and Brett absolutely does not think it’s cute that he has to stretch to reach them, or that the strip of skin that shows on Liam’s lower back is hot. 

“Please forgive him,” Hayden whispers. “He’s a lot better with animals.”

“So _fat_ ,” Liam coos at Jelly, giving him a cat treat. “So _chubby_.”

Brett wonders if there’s a strict rule about having four legs and fur in order to win Liam’s affection. He watches as Liam stands up again and looks over.

“Hey,” he says. “Feeling better?”

“Heaps. Thanks for the medicine.”

“No problem.” With that, Liam’s disappearing again; he looks at Hayden.

She gives him a small smile. “It might not seem like it, but he really is trying.”

But the medicine sent a pretty loud and clear message to Brett; Liam is trying. To be civil, at least, even if he can’t manage friendly. And Brett can deal with that.


	2. Nodus Tollens: Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the amazing feedback on the first part! I wasn't expecting that to be honest haha. Here's the second part of chapter 1 :) 
> 
> Same trigger warnings as last time, with the one added for abuse (mentioned).

Nodus Tollens: Part 2

~*~

With the cold and flu tablets and a solid day of rest on the couch, Brett feels a lot better.

The third day, he’s sort of thinking someone will bring up the shelter. By the fifth, he’s realised two things - that nobody’s going to, and that he’s been here for over a week.

The moment he’s feeling stronger, he cleans up the house. He and Liam have had a few tentative conversations - they have things in common, Brett’s found out, but Liam’s reserved - closed off. He clearly isn’t someone who’ll spill their guts. That’s fine by Brett.

A week goes by, then another three or four days. He’s been here almost three weeks now. He brings up the shelter, reluctantly, only to get waved off by everyone - even Mason. The problem is, Liam still hasn’t really warmed to him beyond what he’s had to, and that’s throwing Brett off.

It sort of comes to a head, really, when Liam comes home from - wherever it is he’s been, which, Brett thinks, taking in the rumpled state of his hair and clothes and the way his lips are bitten red, is probably from a hookup. Brett absolutely doesn’t think about how much that stings as he watches Liam enter, kick his shoes off, and mutter, “hey,” before passing through to his bedroom.

Brett feels a pang of… what is it? Loneliness? Jealousy? Annoyance? Probably all three. When Liam enters again, heading for the kitchen and wearing sweats and a t-shirt, Brett follows him.

“Good day?” he asks casually.

Liam looks up. “Good enough, I guess. You?”

“Yeah. It’s alright I guess. Kind of wish I was in college still.”

“Why aren’t you?” Liam asks. “If you were before that is.”

“My parents were paying,” Brett says softly. “I can’t afford it now. And I live too far away to keep going to my campus anyway, so I dropped out. Figure… I can always start again, right?”

“Right. Loans?”

“I don’t have a job, how would I pay them back?”

“Good point,” Liam says, shrugging.

It’s definitely annoyance Brett’s feeling now. Liam asks him questions, seems interested - and then promptly disengages before Brett can take the conversation any further, or ask Liam about himself. He wants to know why.

“Liam, do you have a problem with me?” Brett asks.

Liam turns to him, a piece of toast in his mouth, looking genuinely confused. “Huh? No.”

“Really?” Brett asks.

“Really.”

“Then why the attitude?” Brett demands. “I thought you fucking hated me.”

“Oh,” Liam says, finally taking the toast out of his mouth. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sort of just like this. I’m sorta prickly about, well, everything really. It’s not you. I’m angry at the whole world.” The last part is said jokingly.

“… Are you sure?” Brett asks hesitantly.

“Dude, yeah. I’m not mad at you.” Liam takes another bite of his toast, puts it on the plate, and then hops up onto the counter, watching him. His t-shirt is too big, and it sags forward a little, showing the base of his throat and the start of his chest.

“If it’s the bi thing, I-”

“It’s not,” Liam interrupts. “I honestly don’t give a shit who you fuck or how. I knew you were bi when we brought you back here. Hayden wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t agreed.”

“What about Mason?”

“Two-one majority vote,” Liam says. “Plus Mason thinks you’re hot.”

Brett laughs a little, feeling relieved. They remain there, in silence, for a little while; Liam makes his way through his toast, scrolling through his phone and swinging his legs lightly. Brett watches him.

“Kinda late for toast,” he comments.

“Bread’s cheaper than meat is.”

Brett nods. “Yeah. I suppose.”

Liam holds his plate out - there’s still a slice of toast on it, covered with avocado spread, salt, and pepper. Brett hesitates, but he is kind of hungry, so he takes it.

Liam smiles when he does. “It’s good. Keeps you full for longer. ‘Cause of the fat in the avocado.”

“Thanks.” He takes a bite, pleasantly surprised by how nice it tastes. “Yeah, it’s good. Thank you.”

Liam shrugs and hops off the counter, rinsing off his plate and then washing his hands.

“So, uh,” Brett begins. “Where are the others?”

“Mason’s on a date,” Liam says, “which means he’s probably getting laid, lucky bastard, and Hayden’s at her boyfriend’s house.” He pauses. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Are you warm enough on the couch? It’s fuckin’ cold in the living room this time of year.”

Brett shrugs. “I make do.”

Liam looks absolutely torn for a moment. Then, “In the spirit of trying to be nicer to you, because you apparently think I hate you, you can sleep in my room with me. If you want to, that is.”

Brett opens his mouth, shocked. “Is that-”

“Yeah. It’s fine. Just don’t cuddle me or anything.”

He’s gone from thinking Liam hates him to being invited to sleep in Liam’s room. “Thank you,” he says softly.

Liam nods, his expression neutral. “I’m going to bed now,” he says. “I mean, stay up as late as you want, you know? I sleep heavy anyway.”

“That’s okay, I’m tired too,” Brett says.

“Cool.” Liam stretches and yawns, revealing a strip of his belly when his shirt lifts; Brett looks away, trying not to think about what that strip of skin would taste like under his lips. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth and shower and shit. But uh, go right ahead, you know?”

“Sure, um - you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. And seriously, stop being so fucking polite to me. It’s weird.”

Brett laughs, watching Liam head down the hallway and then goes to Liam’s bedroom. He’s never been in here before, and Liam keeps the door shut whether he’s in the room or not.

It’s a nice setup. Liam’s got a queen bed; it’s shoved up against the wall under the window, stacked with about a thousand pillows in mismatched cases and Brett can make out at least two blankets and three different duvets. The surface of the side table holds a lamp, a book, an iPod dock, and Liam’s glasses.

There’s a low-slung set of drawers across from the end of the bed - a TV, PlayStation, and stacks of games takes up almost the entire surface, except for one sad corner at the end that holds toiletries. Liam’s desk is one of those corner ones, sitting next to a bookshelf - on the other side of the bookcase is a guitar in a stand. It’s cosy. Nice. When Brett goes to the bed and puts one knee on it hesitantly, he can see into the street below them - dark with snow slush and almost lifeless, lit by two street lamps.

“It’s not much, but it’s home.”

Brett turns. Liam’s entered the room again, wearing a low-riding pair of sweats, socks, and no shirt. He’s towelling his hair off; his shoulders and chest are still kind of wet.

“I like it,” Brett says quietly. “It’s really homey.”

“You haven’t noticed the best part yet,” Liam says with a small, awkward smile. “Check this out.”

With that, he leans over - Brett swallows and looks away when he sees the well-developed muscles in Liam’s back shift - and grabs a control panel hanging from the bed, switching it on.

“What’s that?” Brett asks.

“Electric blanket,” Liam says, then grins. “I don’t like to brag or anything.”

“Holy shit,” Brett breathes, and wow, he can’t believe he’s this excited over an electric blanket. “That’s awesome.”

“Yup.”

“Which side do you sleep on?” Brett asks.

“I sort of sleep everywhere. Pick one.”

Brett chooses the side closer to the wall, feeling like Liam’s gonna want access to his stuff through the night. Liam slumps onto the bed and reaches for a sweater at the end, tugging it down over his bare torso and giving his hair one final scruff with the towel before abandoning it.

“Like I said,” Liam says, flicking the lamp on. “It’s not a lot. I mean, none of us have a lot. But it’s home.”

Brett looks at his hands. “At least you’ve got one.”

There’s a long pause. Liam nudges Brett with his knee; Brett looks up to see Liam smiling at him, kind of sadly.

“So do you,” he says.

“Liam, I…” He knows what Liam’s trying to say, and he appreciates it, but… “I can’t pay for anything, I-”

“We all talked about it,” Liam says. “We figure as long as you keep cleaning and making those fucking awesome dinners, that’s enough, you know? We’ll just buy a little extra food. We’ll find you a job.” Liam nudges him again, smiling. “Nice, respectable college boy? You’ll get one in no time.”

“I didn’t graduate, Liam.”

“So? Like that means jack shit anymore. Mason went on a date with a guy who has a PhD in biomedical science a few weeks ago. Guess where he worked?”

“Where?”

“Bath and fucking Body Works, dude. Degrees don’t mean shit anymore.”

“You’re getting one.”

“Well, they can’t hurt, right?”

There’s a long pause. Brett doesn’t say anything. He’s relieved to have a place to stay, the weight of potentially being thrown out off his shoulders, guilty for putting the strain on them, and feeling awkward because he’s pretty much falling in love with Liam. It’s different to falling in love with a girl, but he recognises the feeling and he knows he’s fucked. He’s only known Liam a few weeks, and-

“You ever played Mass Effect?” Liam asks.

“Huh? No.”

“Oh, dude.” Liam flicks the TV on. “It’s the best game out there. C'mon, just half an hour.”

Brett smiles. “Okay.”

~*~

Half an hour turns into two.

Sometime past one in the morning, Brett looks down and notices that Liam’s fallen asleep, his glasses on, his shoulders sticking out of the covers. He was right about the game at any rate; the only reason Brett’s not still playing is because his eyes are screaming for reprieve.

He takes Liam’s glasses off, folds them, and puts them back on the bedside table before leaning over him - carefully, ever so slowly, trying desperately not to wake Liam up - and flicking the lamp off.

The room is plunged into darkness. Brett settles back against the mattress tentatively. The street lights illuminate Liam’s face - Brett can make out the soft upturn of his nose and the way his lips are parted gently, his breathing soft.

Brett sighs, shuffling deeper under the covers and shutting his eyes. This is the first time he’s slept in an actual bed in what feels like years, even though it’s only been a few weeks. He’d forgotten, almost, what it felt like to be able to stretch his legs out, to be able to lie on his back and not roll off the edge accidentally.

He feels sleep tugging at him and follows it down, feeling, for the first time in a while, more okay than not okay.

~*~

“Shit, fuck.”

Brett opens his eyes groggily. Liam’s lunging for the end of the bed clumsily, for the set of drawers - he gets caught in the flat sheet and grabs Brett’s thigh to steady himself.

Brett’s dick leaps like a dog on command. “What’re you doing?” he asks groggily.

“Phone’s ringing, sorry-”

Liam finally reaches the end of the bed, and his hand is gone. He grabs his phone - lunges over the end of the bed when it almost falls, and looks at the screen. Liam never just answers. He always checks first.

Brett sees him scowl, then hit the decline button. He crawls back under the covers with a groan, tugs them up over his face.

“’S too early.”

Liam doesn’t seem to feel about them waking up together, which Brett supposes is good. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“You’re right, that’s too early.”

Liam palms his face sleepily; his hand rasps as it scrapes over the stubble there. “Did you take my glasses off?” he asks sleepily.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Liam snuggles down under the covers and closes his eyes, yawning. For a while, they lie like that - they doze, in and out of consciousness, for almost forty five minutes. They only awaken properly when the shower turns on.

Brett rolls. “Do you have work today?” he asks sleepily.

Liam yawns, nods, and begins to sit up. “I better get ready,” he mumbles.

“'Kay.”

Within the next two hours, the apartment empties. Brett gets up, decides to clean a little. If he’s not paying rent he can at least do something. He vacuums, sweeps the kitchen floor, straightens up the couch - even gets dinner started so it’s ready for them when they get home.

He’s only just sat down, after showering, when the front door opens. Liam steps in, shaking snow out of his hair and sniffling wetly. He’s got his messenger bag slung across his chest and fifty million layers of clothes.

“Hey,” Brett says, surprised. “Short shift?”

“Yeah. Just six hours today.” Liam kicks his shoes off and reaches into his bag. “Here. I got you this.”

“Got me - whoa.” That’s the biggest muffin Brett’s ever seen in his life. “It’s huge.”

“I know, right? It’s like, if you gave a cupcake steroids and growth hormones.” Liam grins, passing it over. “Anyway, thought you might like it. Hope chocolate chip is okay.”

“More than okay,” Brett says gratefully, breaking a piece off and nibbling on it. “What do I owe you?”

“Nothin’. You writing all this down or something?” Liam looks around. “Wow, it looks great in here. Did you clean?”

“Yeah.”

Liam smiles at him. “Dude. Thanks. That’s awesome.”

Brett - because he’s had desperate approval-seeking tendencies since he was born, pretty much - says, “I started dinner, too. Just, you know, so you guys didn’t have to worry about it.”

Liam sighs happily and sinks into the couch after ditching his jacket and hoodie. “I’m gonna marry you,” he says contentedly.

Brett laughs.

“Hey, you think I was kidding when I told Hayden I’d get down on one knee?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t need you to be any shorter than what you already are.”

Liam’s jaw drops. “Rude!” he says, kicking Brett lightly. “Hey, you wanna play more Mass Effect?”

“If you want to, yeah.”

“Hayden and Mason won’t play it with me. They’re not that into video games. I mean I’m not either really… just this one.” He turns to Brett as they head down the hallway. “By the way, I was thinkin’ you could come into college with me one day.”

“Why?” Brett asks curiously.

“I dunno, I feel bad that you’re cooped up in here,” Liam says. “It’d be nice to get out during the daytime. You could hang out around campus. It’s actually really pretty, we’ve got all these really old tall buildings and…”

Brett listens to Liam talk, noticing that he’s animated - using his hands and arms, even tilting his body sideways at some points. Sleeping in the same bed as Liam seems to have really softened him up, at least for now.

“What?” Liam asks self-consciously.

“Nothing.” Brett shakes his head. “Nothing, I just like listening to you talk about it. I’ll come in with you, it sounds great.”

Liam smiles. Brett’s been out of the apartment, sure, but it’s only ever been with Liam, Mason, or Hayden - mostly Liam and Hayden, because Mason seems to be the busiest out of all of them and is pretty rarely home during the day. It’ll be nice to get out and just wander around Liam’s college campus for a bit.

They play Mass Effect for almost three hours. Brett’s so immersed in the game he hardly notices Liam’s phone ringing, or Liam letting it ring out. That’s gotta be almost the tenth time he’s seen it happen; he wants to ask, but he still knows it’s none of his business, and he feels like he’s only just making progress - real progress - with Liam. Asking could push him away.

After three hours, Liam yawns and stretches - his shirt rides up, showing off a sliver of his belly. Brett tries not to look, but Liam’s stomach is flat and kind of pale from the winter and has a little trail of dark blonde hair leading into his jeans, and he almost can’t help it. He thinks maybe if Liam was pretty, but vapid, he wouldn’t be nearly as attracted to him. As it is, Liam’s hot and smart, and that’s… sort of nice, but not at all good for Brett.

“Let’s go out,” Liam says, standing up.

“Where?”

“Gotta go to the city and pick something up. You wanna come?”

Brett follows Liam off the bed. “Sure.” He wants to go everywhere with Liam. He’s whipped. “Where’re we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Brett’s a little worried about that as he grabs his jacket and follows Liam out the front door. They don’t have to wait long for a bus to arrive, but they do have to stand; Liam holds the hand-rail closer to the door, and it’s so crowded they have to stand close - only inches apart. Brett’s staring down at Liam and watching the way his neck moves as he turns to look around curiously - taking in the light smattering of stubble on his cheeks and the way his nose twitches every now and then.

The bus rocks. Liam, who’s evidently used to it, catches his footing, but Brett stumbles a little, right into Liam’s space. When Liam lifts his head to look, his hair brushes Brett’s chin. He smiles a little bit, like he’s not sure if that’s an appropriate response.

“Not much of a bus passenger, huh?”

“Nope,” Brett admits quietly. He doesn’t really want to step away; even being this close is providing extra warmth, and Brett can smell Liam’s aftershave. He kind of wants to spend hours nuzzling Liam’s throat and neck and the underside of his jaw with his nose, getting drunk from the scent.

Liam doesn’t seem like he’s uncomfortable with the proximity; when Brett doesn’t step back, Liam stays where he is, resuming what he was doing before - watching the other passengers. Brett feels… strange, almost like standing this close, with Liam’s much smaller frame almost totally obscured by his. He feels protective, he realises. Like he’s standing between Liam and anything bad that might happen to him.

He sighs. He’s so fucking gone.

The bus stops, and Liam moves abruptly, breaking Brett out of his spell. He follows Liam towards the door, relieved to be out of the crowded space and disappointed that he doesn’t have a reason to stand close to Liam anymore.

“So what’re we picking up?”

“You’ll see,” Liam says lightly, beginning down the crowded street.

Brett hurries to keep up - Liam’s got short legs, but fuck, he moves fast. “Are we buying drugs?” he asks, feeling worried.

Liam turns to look at him strangely. “We’re not buying drugs.”

Brett follows him through the winding streets, grateful for his height and the strip of colour in Liam’s hair that makes him insanely easy to find. They’re off the main street in five minutes, and off the side-streets in ten, winding through tiny little laneways and street stalls.

“Are you sure this isn’t drug related?” Brett asks slowly. “This isn’t gonna help my case, you know-”

Liam stops and turns to him. “Brett, for the last time,” he sighs, putting a hand on his chest briefly and stopping him in his tracks. “We aren’t buying drugs. Now c'mon.”

With that, he turns and begins to stride away; Brett hurries to keep up, the warmth from Liam’s fingertips still leeched into his coat.

Liam swings around the corner, into a tiny little alleyway lit up with strings of lights and outdoor heating lamps. Foreign smells waft up Brett’s nose; spices and seasonings from other worlds entirely, ones he never got to experience in his small hometown.

“Where are we?” he asks.

“This is DeGraves,” Liam says. “This whole street I mean.”

“This is a street?”

“It’s on Google Maps.”

“… Okay, fair enough. But what are we doing here?”

Liam smiles, turns left again, and begins up the most frighteningly narrow, rickety set of stairs Brett’s ever seen in his life, wedged between two buildings. The writing on the side of the building isn’t English; it’s some kind of Asian language, but he isn’t sure which.

Liam pushes the door at the front of the steps open; the door meows loudly in return, and Brett enters the tiny entryway to the sight of half a million ceramic cats, their paws raised and their painted-on expressions grinning with happiness. Liam holds the door open for him, looking around - purposefully, like there’s something or someone in particular he’s searching for.

“Mrs. Xhu!” he calls, smiling.

The responding woman makes Liam look like a giant - she’s a tiny old lady, her black hair greying at the temples, the corners of her eyes drooping with age. She beams when she sees Liam and hurries towards them.

“So good to see you,” she says cheerfully - her English is heavily accented, and it takes Brett a moment to grasp what she’s saying, but Liam seems to understand her clearly. He smiles as he leans down, and they kiss each others’ cheeks.

“Hi, Mrs. Xhu.”

“You come for dumpling? Tea?”

“Both,” Liam says with a smile.

She peers past him at Brett, looking curious. “New white boy,” she says.

Liam laughs. “Yeah. This is Brett.”

“He your brother?”

“Mrs. Xhu,” Liam says teasingly. “I know we all look alike, but c'mon.”

She gives his cheek a light smack, but it’s affectionate, and so is her smile. She says something - Brett thinks it might be Chinese - and Liam bursts into a peal of laughter so loud it startles him, almost more so than realising Liam completely understood what the little old woman’s saying.

They chat for a bit; Brett stands awkwardly and waits until Mrs. Xhu bustles out to the back. Liam turns to him; his cheeks are red, and he’s smiling widely.

“Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay. You understand her?”

“A little, yeah. Mostly. I know some Chinese just from being around her so much. Oh.” Liam shakes his head. “She said you’re handsome and lovely and tall and that you’ll make someone a fine husband one day.”

Brett laughs. “And what’d you say?”

Liam’s eyes glitter with mirth. “I said I highly doubted that.”

Brett chuckles and is about to reply when Mrs. Xhu comes back, holding two large bags and smiling. “Eat,” she says, passing them to Liam. “Stay warm. Keep out of cold. Catch your death.”

“I’d never do such a thing, Mrs. Xhu,” Liam says with an innocent smile, and she scoffs fondly, crossing her arms.

They bid her goodbye after that - even Brett gets a motherly kiss on the cheek - and leave. Liam’s breath mists the moment they step back outside, but he still looks happy - content.

“How come we didn’t pay?” Brett asks.

“Bartering, dude,” Liam says. “I clean out her exhaust fans and gutters once a week and Hayden brings her coffee on weekends. Pretty sure Mason taught her how to make awesome stew, as well. When you don’t have money around here, you trade services.”

“And she gives you food in return?”

“Yup.” Liam holds up the bag, smiling. “Dumplings - different kinds because we all like different stuff - and ready-to-cook wontons. Tea sometimes too, in winter.” Liam turns to look at him, properly, the smile still on his face. “Lots of people are doing it rough around here, man. Most of 'em get it. You don’t have money, you might have something else, you know? She might lose money giving us dumplings, but she saves not having to hire a handyman to clean her shit, you know?”

Brett nods. Liam’s really street-smart, which is something he hasn’t particularly observed in Hayden and Mason. “That’s a lot of dumplings,” he says.

“Oh yeah, they’re frozen right now. We gotta cook them. I’ll show you how.”

“Liam,” Brett says softly. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what? Show you how to cook dumplings? You can do it so many different ways, dude. As far as I’m concerned it’s a genuine life hack, y'know?”

“No, I mean… any of this. House me, put up with me, share your food-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Liam says flippantly. “It’s cool. We like having you around. Doesn’t cost us any more in rent and electricity or anything.”

“But food, and the water bill-”

Liam turns to him and sighs. “Look,” he says softly. “You can leave if you really want to, you know? We’re kind of a really rough patchwork family and it doesn’t work for everyone, I get that. But for what it’s worth… we like you, and none of us are gonna throw you out when you don’t have anyplace else to go.”

Brett swallows. “I don’t want to go,” he says. “I like you guys too. I like your patchwork family.” _I like you, Liam. Even when you’re cranky._

Liam smiles. “Okay. Good. So let me show you how to make dumplings.”

~*~

They’re alone for a lot of the night.

Brett still thinks Liam is beautiful, especially when he’s wandering around in too-long sweats and fuzzy pink bedsocks he stole from Hayden and a baggy, ripped up old crewneck, his hair soft and shiny and falling into his face. But it’s easier to deal with than it was before - he can appreciate from afar without feeling like a total creep.

Liam shows him so many ways to make dumplings Brett’s almost laughing by the end, because as it turns out, this really is a life hack; Liam steams them, fries them, puts some in soup, boils them, and even shows him how to microwave them. Brett likes the fried ones best; they’re crunchy on the bottom.

Mason returns to the apartment at nine, and Hayden arrives not long after. They play a few games of cards before Mason retires to study and Hayden goes to bed.

Brett starts getting sleepy at ten thirty. He sighs, cracks his neck, and begins to make up his couch bed.

“What’re you doing?”

It’s Liam, freshly out of the shower. He looks kind of sleepy himself, Brett realises.

“Getting ready for bed,” he says with a small smile.

Liam turns a little. “My bedroom’s that way,” he says confusedly.

Brett swallows and looks at the couch; it doesn’t look nearly as inviting as it did the first few nights. “I thought that was a one-time offer kind of deal,” he murmurs.

Liam gives him a tiny smile. “It wasn’t. Come on. I turned the electric blanket on again.”

Brett smiles and follows him in; the bed is exactly how they left it that morning. When he sinks into the mattress, the blankets are already warm.

“You don’t have to sleep here,” Liam says. “I’m not forcing you or anything. But the offer’s open, okay? Whenever you want to.”

“Thanks, Liam,” Brett says softly.

Liam gives him a small smile. “Don’t want you to get sick again.”

“Yeah, I really can’t afford to get sick,” Brett murmurs. “Not right now.”

“We’ll find you a job,” Liam promises. “Okay? Then you can save up some money and get back on your feet. There’s always something.” He climbs into bed with Brett, wearing boxers and a t-shirt. “Wanna watch a movie or something?”

“What movie?”

Liam reaches to the bedside table and holds up a memory stick. “Your choice.”

Brett chooses something called Lights Out - a decision he almost immediately regrets, but Liam won’t let him back out of. Liam doesn’t seem at all scared by the demonic woman-child stalking the hallways. In fact, he laughs at every jumpscare, and especially when Brett’s visibly petrified.

“I’m really glad I’m sleeping in here tonight,” Brett mumbles. He’s tempted to curl up against Liam’s side and disappear, but he’s not sure how Liam will react to that.

Liam smiles. “It’s not that scary.”

“Are you completely desensitised to scary movies?”

“Pretty much. I’ve seen a lot of them.”

“Yeah, well… you better save me if something bad happens.”

“Nah. I’m gonna use you as demon bait. They like pretty boys.”

“Jerk.”

~*~

It’s around eight a week later when Brett hears the front door open clumsily.

Everyone’s out, so when he enters the living room, he’s not really sure who to expect. It turns out to be Liam - he’s stumbling a little.

“Hey,” Brett says slowly.

“Yo,” Liam mumbles, kicking his shoes off and heading straight to his bedroom. He seems like he’s in a bad mood, so Brett leaves him alone. He goes back to the TV and doesn’t move again until he gets hungry.

He’s only been in the kitchen for a minute or so when Liam comes in as well, opens the freezer, and stares into it for a moment before eating some ice straight out of the tray. Liam does eat ice cubes on their own - Brett winces every time he hears Liam’s teeth cracking them in half while they’re eating dinner - but he’s never eaten them straight from the tray.

After eating the ice cubes, Liam turns around, gives him a wobbly smile, and leaves the room again. Brett hears the sliding door open; Liam’s gone to sit on the fire escape, apparently. Where they’re really not strictly meant to sit.

He hesitates, but he’s a little worried about Liam’s behaviour. He abandons his food and heads towards the fire escape; it’s a tiny platform right outside, mostly concrete, with bars you can push your legs through and lean on.

Liam’s sitting out there with his legs crossed; there’s a bottle in his hand, and Brett realises it’s straight bourbon just from the smell. He sits down next to Liam.

“Is the ice better straight from the tray?” he asks after a moment.

Liam chuckles a little. “Tasted the same to me.”

They’re quiet. Liam drinks, offers Brett some. Brett shakes his head; he feels like it’s not a good idea for both of them to be drunk on the fire escape.

“So what’s your story, huh?” Brett asks quietly. “Because you know mine, but I don’t know anything about you.”

Liam sighs. “Knew you’d ask eventually. Look, it’s not anything different to your standard teen angst narrative, you know? My dad was a drop-kick alcoholic who got off on beating my mom and I up, and my mom, well, she just checked the fuck out. No point going to her for anything. Soon as I turned eighteen I got out of there.”

Brett’s mouth is open; he’s not quite sure why this is Liam’s “standard teen angst” narrative, but suddenly, Liam’s attitude and distrust and general lack of social skills are making terrible, painful sense to him. “Shit,” he says.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.” Liam takes another swig at the bottle, wincing.

“I’m sorry,” Brett says softly.

“What for? You didn’t do it.” The bottle sloshes again; Brett’s sort of in disbelief that Liam’s drinking that stuff straight.

“That it happened to you at all.”

There’s a long pause. Liam takes two more sips before saying, “Yeah. It was fucked up. Thanks.”

Brett nods. As Liam lifts the bottle to his lips, Brett notices the twin patches of colour in his cheeks, that the bottle’s almost a third empty. Liam’s strange behaviour in the kitchen makes sudden sense to him; Liam’s drunk. He’s been drinking this stuff for a while by the looks of it.

Brett reaches out and takes the bottle gently; Liam lets him.

“Don’t think you need any more of this,” Brett says softly, capping it. “We should go inside. It’s cold out.”

Liam stands up, wobbles a little. “Fuck,” he mutters.

“How much did you have to drink?” Brett steadies him.

“Not enough. Still thinkin’ about it.”

“There are better ways to deal with it, you know,” Brett says quietly, helping Liam inside and stopping him from running into a chair.

“Yeah?” Liam asks. He’s starting to sound thick, slurred. “Not that I can afford.”

Brett closes his eyes briefly, nods. That’s a familiar narrative. “Okay. C'mon. You’re drunk.”

“Not that drunk.”

“You’re pretty drunk. All that booze in such a tiny person?”

Liam smiles a little, and when Brett loops an arm around his waist hesitantly, Liam lets him, lets his head loll against Brett’s shoulder. “You’re really warm,” he mumbles.

“I’m not. You are.”

“Mmhm. Where’re you taking me anyway?”

“Your bedroom.”

“I don’t wanna sleep.”

“You should. You’re gonna be sick tomorrow.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah you are.” Brett deposits Liam gently on his mattress and reaches for the bottle of water at Liam’s bedside table. “Here. Drink this, okay?”

Liam drinks some and blinks up at him slowly. “Thanks for listening,” he mumbles.

“Least I could do. You ever wanna talk about more, let me know.”

“You’re really nice,” Liam mumbles, rolling onto his back slowly. “I dunno why your parents kicked you out… you make me want to trust you.”

Brett’s eyes sting. “Ringing endorsement,” he says weakly. “You need a bucket or anything?”

“No,” Liam mumbles. “I don’t feel sick.”

Brett gets one anyway. Liam will feel sick at some point. There’s no way he couldn’t with the amount of booze he just consumed.

“Get some sleep,” Brett says, pulling a blanket over Liam’s body. “Don’t roll onto your back.”

“Yessir,” Liam slurs.

Brett props him up in case, then leaves the room, shutting the door. Liam’s admission has left him feeling shaken - the notion, too, that Liam believes it’s a “standard teen angst narrative”.

Brett rubs his face, then goes to do the dishes.

~*~

He wakes up sometime around midnight, needing to piss.

He stumbles off the couch with a short groan and pads down the hallway. He doesn’t notice that the bathroom light is already on; by the time he does, it’s too late, and he’s already pushing the door open.

Liam’s kneeling in front of the toilet, and judging by how slumped over he is, he’s been here a while. He shoots Brett a weak, heatless glare when he opens the door.

“Shit,” Brett says. “Sorry.”

Liam leans on his forearm. “’S fine,” he mutters.

“What happened to your bucket?”

“What bucket?”

Brett smiles at him gently. “I left you a bucket. Didn’t you see it?”

“Might’ve tripped over it.” Liam starts to straighten his spine out slowly; he’s moving like it’s a laborious effort, and man, does Brett know that feeling well. He shuts the door behind him and comes inside.

“Don’t move,” he says.

“I assume you’re here to piss or something,” Liam mutters. It’s nice to know he’s full of attitude even when he’s hungover.

“I was, but it’s not urgent. I’ll sneak through to Hayden’s bathroom.” Brett grabs a hand towel from the sink and wets it with cold water, then kneels down beside Liam. He notices Liam’s tracking his movements warily, from the corner of his eye, even though he looks like he’s going to be sick again fairly shortly.

“Here,” Brett murmurs, placing the towel over the back of Liam’s neck. “Should help with the nausea. Maybe the headache, too.”

“Thanks,” Liam mumbles.

Brett hesitates. “You… want me to leave, or…?”

“I don’t care,” Liam gasps, then leans forward and pukes. Brett winces at the sound, unwillingly noticing that Liam’s hardly bringing anything up - he must’ve been here for a while. And fuck, Brett knows that puking from booze and puking because you’re actually sick are two entirely different things.

He reaches out, hesitantly, and settles a hand on Liam’s back, too scared to actually start rubbing it until Liam doesn’t flinch from him.

Liam coughs and spits, then leans his head back against his forearm. His hair is damp with sweat, and his face is almost totally white. “Fuck,” he groans. “Sorry.”

Brett uses the wet cloth on the back of Liam’s neck to wipe his face a little, concentrating on his mouth. He sort of does it automatically, without thinking, the way he would’ve done for his ex girlfriend or little sister when they were sick. Liam, to his surprise, doesn’t shove him off or protest the treatment.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, making sure to get Liam’s nose as well. “Been there, done that.” He stands up and rinses the towel off, then comes back, putting it over Liam’s neck again.

Liam lifts his eyes and actually sort of smiles at him, weakly, and without humour. “So you know I feel like I’m dying?”

“Oh, buddy, you wouldn’t believe how incredibly aware of that I am,” Brett sighs, rubbing Liam’s back as he pitches forward and hovers above the toilet bowl. Nothing happens; he watches Liam’s throat move as he swallows convulsively. This is the worst part; having nothing to throw up, but your body still trying to expel all the poison.

“It’ll pass,” Brett sighs. “Easy.”

Liam spits and then swallows, leaning over and breathing heavily, his eyes shut and his fringe damp with sweat. After a moment’s hesitation, Brett pushes the soft purple locks away from his face, admiring the way the purple melts into the blonde in a gradient. Hayden did a good job, he reflects as he strokes Liam’s hair back and tries to get it out of his face. Liam doesn’t seem to mind Brett touching him, after all.

“Fuck,” Liam groans breathlessly.

“Should’ve stopped you sooner, huh?” Brett murmurs sympathetically. Liam’s shaking.

“Please do next time,” Liam breathes weakly.

“There’s not gonna be a next time. I’m turfing the whole bottle. Where did you even get it from, huh?”

“Someone at college.”

“Figures.” He uses his thumb to rub Liam’s shoulder blade gently. “Why’d you get drunk, Liam?” he asks softly.

Liam closes his eyes; his forearm is braced across the rim of the toilet, and he leans his forehead on it, swallowing thickly. “My mom won’t stop fucking calling me,” he mutters.

_So that’s why he keeps declining the phone calls_ , Brett thinks. _It’s his mom_. “What’s she want?”

“I suppose I’d know if I’d pick up the fucking call.” Liam struggles up and leans over the bowl, his breathing uneven and laboured, but doesn’t vomit. After a few minutes, he settles back in his original position. “Probably wants to tell me she’s sorry or something.”

_Fuck, I wish my mom would do that_ , Brett thinks, but doesn’t say it aloud - what Liam’s parents did to him is totally different to what Brett’s parents did.

“Maybe she needs to know you forgive her,” he says softly.

“I _don’t_ forgive her,” Liam snaps. “And I’m never _going_ to fucking forgive her. Sooner she gets that, sooner we can both move the fuck on.”

Brett hesitates. “Did she hit you too?” Something about Liam’s mom hitting him seems worse than his dad hitting him.

Liam laughs bitterly. “She never had to. Dad had that particular part of "discipline” covered. Mom checked out. Realised if he was hitting me he was less likely to hit her. She never raised a hand - whether it was to hit me or protect me. She did nothing.“

Brett knew Liam had issues, but he really didn’t know how deep they run, and now he’s feeling honest-to-God worried. Liam needs counselling, only he can’t afford it, so he’s resorting instead to sex and alcohol to numb whatever pain he’s feeling.

He rubs Liam’s back, wipes his temple with the cloth. "I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

There’s a long pause, until Liam lifts his head a little. “You’re way better about this than my parents were,” he croaks.

“What do you mean?”

Liam swallows. “When I used to get sick my dad would get really mad. Usually made me clean up the mess, even if it made me sicker. Used to just wish Mom would, I dunno, act like a mom. Hold me, or stroke my hair or something. Protect me.”

Brett strokes Liam’s hair back again. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” he says softly. “You know that, right? That not everyone you meet is gonna hurt you?”

Liam smiles tremulously. “I wish I did.”

Brett’s heart lurches uncomfortably. “Are you um…” He has to stop and clear his throat. Liam really doesn’t understand that people aren’t out to get him, won’t hurt him, and don’t want him to suffer. He suspected it, but he didn’t really know. “Are you finished?”

Liam nods tiredly. “I think so.”

“Maybe you should go back to bed,” Brett says softly. “It’s cold in here. And you’ve got a bucket in there anyway.”

“Right,” Liam says, his voice exhausted and scratchy. “Yeah.”

Brett stands up and helps Liam to his feet - uses the towel to mop up his face again before flushing the toilet. Liam doesn’t leave the bathroom until Brett does, which Brett gathers means Liam wants Brett to follow him.

So he does. Liam sinks into the bed like he can’t physically hold himself up anymore, slumps up against the headboard, and flicks his TV on. “I can’t sleep,” he explains tiredly. “I still feel pretty sick. And headachy.”

“You might for a while.” Brett joins him. Liam watches, his eyes red and watery, still shaking a little. He looks wrecked - beaten in a way Brett isn’t familiar with. It’s uncomfortable. It hurts. He can’t imagine what it must be like for Liam. It’s not like Liam doesn’t know he’s like this, either. Brett knows he doesn’t lack self awareness.

Brett shifts closer and, after a moment, wraps his arm around Liam’s shoulders.

Liam shudders underneath him, like he’s startled or something. It’s only when he looks at Brett does Brett realise he’s crying.

His heart must be breaking. There’s no other possible solution for the pain lancing through his chest; he wraps his other arm around Liam tightly and holds him, close, stroking the back of Liam’s neck with his thumb.

They sit like that for a while. Liam cries for a long time, until he’s leaning on Brett’s shoulder, breathing rapidly and sniffling wetly.

“Shit,” he croaks. “I’m a mess.”

“It’s okay,” Brett says. “We all are.”

“Yeah, but I’m not.” Liam wipes his nose. “At least not when people can see me.”

“You don’t have to hide around me,” Brett says comfortingly. “I mean, God, the first week I was here all I did was cry and have panic attacks. Shit happens, you know?”

Liam stares at him for a moment, then looks down at his hands. They’re twisted together - a habit Liam’s got from being incredibly nervous, Brett’s learned.

“I’m gay,” he says quietly.

Brett opens his mouth, then closes it. He feels blindsided. He wasn’t expecting that at all. Not even close.

Liam smiles, self-deprecating. “Didn’t see that coming, huh?”

Brett clears his throat, tries to make a joke. “No,” he says weakly. “This…” He twists Liam’s purple hair around his fingertips, “gave it away.”

Liam rewards his weak attempt at a joke with a soft, broken-sounding laugh. Brett pulls a blanket up around his shoulders, squeezing them a little, trying to stop him from shivering.

“Better?” he asks softly.

Liam nods, swallowing.

“Thanks for telling me, Liam,” Brett says.

“Thanks for making me feel like I could.”

Brett nods a little. “You should have a shower when you’re feeling better,” he says. “Trust me, it’ll help a lot.”

Liam wraps his arms around his stomach. “In the morning,” he breathes.

“Okay.”

Brett’s surprised when Liam leans into him heavily, not protesting Brett’s arm around his shoulders or the hand in his hair. “Thanks for listening,” he croaks. “I don’t talk about it much.” He shakes his head with a wince. “Ever.”

Brett pauses. “Sounds like you need to,” he says quietly.

Liam shuts his eyes. “Mason and Hayden don’t need to worry about me any more than what they already do,” he mumbles. “It’s shitty for them.”

“I feel like… it’s probably shittier for them to want to help and not know how,” Brett says softly. “I think they’d surprise you if you let them.”

Liam looks up at him. “You did.”

“Surprised you?”

Liam nods.

“How’s that?”

Liam sighs, reaches over for the bucket, and grips it tightly. He must still be feeling nauseous. “You got under my skin,” he mumbles. “I don’t let people get under my skin. But you did. I don’t get it. I’ve slept with so many people in the last six months I’ve lost count, and I don’t even remember their names or numbers. You didn’t even have to touch me to get into my head. What the fuck did you do to me?”

Brett’s heart sinks. Liam doesn’t sound mad when he says it; he sounds distressed. Brett wants to tell Liam that wanting kindness and safety isn’t a chink in his armour, but somehow he doesn’t think the message is going to translate very well. Instead, he says, “I was just nice to you.”

“Even when I wasn’t nice to you,” Liam moans. “I’m sorry.” He’s crying again.

“It doesn’t matter,” Brett says quickly. “I get it. I do. Mason told me a little bit - enough to help me understand. I don’t hold it against you, okay?” Jesus, Liam really is a mess; Brett’s going to pour the booze down the sink the moment he passes out properly. “You should get some sleep,” he says. “You’re gonna feel like shit in the morning.”

“I already feel like shit.” But Liam scoots down in the bed, putting the bucket next to the bedside table. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Brett pulls the covers up a little bit. “Just get some rest, okay?”

“Okay. Night.”

“Night, Liam.”

~*~

Brett’s in the kitchen, making himself some breakfast, when Liam emerges the next morning.

He’d stayed through the night, just to make sure Liam was okay, and only risen when the sun started to come up. The first thing he’d done was pour the rest of the bottle of alcohol down the sink.

Brett hears the shower running, but doesn’t realise it’s actually Liam in there until he steps out into the kitchen, looking like death. He’s incredibly pale, bags under his eyes, and looks like he’s going to collapse under the weight of the towel around his shoulders. His hair is wet.

“Morning,” Brett murmurs, keeping his voice low.

“Morning,” Liam croaks back. He collapses into his usual spot at the coffee table, one elbow on it, leaning his face against his hand.

Brett gets a glass of water and two Advil, puts them in front of Liam. “Here. Drink as much as you can.”

“Thanks.” Liam swallows the pills and drinks half the glass of water. “How long have you been up?”

“A couple of hours.”

Liam turns his head a little, watching as Brett settles in next to him. “Sorry about last night,” he mumbles tiredly.

“Don’t apologise. It’s fine. Least you’re not a mean drunk, right?”

“Right. Just a really emotional drunk.”

“Nothing wrong with that either.” Brett picks up a slice of toast - there’s nothing on it - and nudges it at Liam’s lips. “C'mon. You gotta eat.”

Liam takes a bite of the toast reluctantly, chews, and swallows. “Tastes like cardboard.”

“That’s your tastebuds saying "fuck you” for the booze,“ Brett says. "Which, by the way, I poured down the drain.”

“Fine by me.”

Brett adjusts his hand as Liam takes another bite of the toast, watching him. He seems kind of despondent, but not beyond what’s normal, given how drunk and sick he was. “Do you remember everything that happened last night?” he asks softly.

Liam nods, winces, and palms his forehead. “Yep. I told you everything.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m pretty fucked up.” Liam opens his eyes, sees the helpless expression on Brett’s face, and says, “It’s true. I don’t expect you to rebut it. I’d think you were crazy if you did.”

“Drink some more water,” Brett replies softly, pushing the glass towards Liam. “You got work or class today?”

“Class. I’m skipping.”

“Good plan.”

“Can we not talk about any of it?” Liam asks tiredly. “Any of what I said last night? I can’t right now.”

“Yeah, of course,” Brett murmurs. Liam’s honesty is really surprising him, but he’ll take it. “If you wanna talk about it, let me know. I won’t push you.”

“Thanks,” Liam murmurs.

“Don’t mention it.”

~*~

Things go back to normal for a week.

He and Liam don’t talk about anything that happened that night, and they go back to not touching. Brett kind of wants to hold Liam and never let him go, but he can’t. It might be one of the hardest things he’s experienced, to want to fix someone, and help them, and knowing that there’s no way to make it happen. Nothing he can say to make it better.

Liam does let him closer in other ways, though. They share Chinese food off the same chopsticks, and he tries to show Brett to use them properly, although Brett’s hopeless. They still play video games until late in the night and share the same bed. Brett starts going to the cafe with Liam on his shorter shifts, and Liam tests out different coffees on him. Some of them are great, some of them are awful, but Brett always finishes them.

Liam takes Brett to his college campus. It’s freezing cold, snowing, but Brett’s happy to be outdoors and somewhere new. He hunkers down with a book on a bench under a tree until Liam finishes class. Liam’s right about the campus; it’s old, comprised of a strange jigsaw of incredibly old buildings with soaring turrets, short, flat, industrial buildings, and an ultra-modern library and primary lecture building. When they wait for the bus home, Brett stands with his back to the wind, shielding Liam’s body from it.

About six days after Liam gets drunk, Brett’s in the kitchen when Liam enters the hallway, early in the morning. He’d thought Liam was gone - he was sure Liam’s alarm was set for work, and he wasn’t in bed when Brett woke up. Brett realises now that Liam was probably in the bathroom.

“Hey,” Brett says, surprised to see Liam entering the hallway. “Don’t you have work?”

Liam yawns and stretches. “They cancelled my shift. Said it was pretty much dead. Hayden’s mad she has to work, but I dunno how to use the register.”

“Well, then, you have to play Don’t Starve with me.”

“Mass Effect first?”

“… Okay, deal.”

They spend the entire day playing video games, pretty much. Even now, Liam doesn’t really talk much - he has fits and bursts of rapid speech followed by relative silence, and he doesn’t seem to realise that maybe that’s a little odd. Brett knows it’s probably tied into how his parents treated him; he knows that kids who grow up afraid usually grow up anti-social, and Liam’s social skills are sub-par to say the least. Brett doesn’t mind. He can read Liam pretty easily anyway, and he doesn’t mind Liam’s random fits of chatter.

The door to the apartment opens around six. “Hi, guys,” Hayden says as she walks in, followed by Mason. “Oh, nice, Liam. Did you get dressed today?”

“Did I need to?” Liam asks, seeming genuinely mystified.

“Well, no, because you got out of work,” Hayden huffs.

“Aww,” Liam coos, standing up and going to her. “Hayds.” With that, he wraps her in a tight hug. “Did you miss me?”

Hayden and Mason both look downright shocked at how affectionate Liam’s being. Brett sort of wishes he could get the same kind of bear hug, really.

Hayden hugs Liam back, hesitantly at first, and then harder. She looks like she’s going to cry, and that, more than anything, really tells Brett how flighty Liam is concerning physical affection. He looks happy to be in Hayden’s embrace, but not like it’s out of the ordinary.

_Does he not know how distant he is_? Brett wonders.

“Pile-on!” Mason announces, and joins the hug with his arms around both of them. Liam’s still smiling, seeming unconcerned with the contact.

It’s nice to watch, but Brett doesn’t interfere - doesn’t want to ruin it for them. He just smiles and watches for a moment before turning his attention back to his laptop. Liam eventually retreats to his room; Hayden and Mason are starting dinner. There seems to be a general consensus that Brett shouldn’t have to do all the cooking. Even if he is freeloading in literally every other way.

He goes on Facebook. Resists the urge to check out his mom’s for almost an hour before he finally caves and clicks on her profile.

It’s been six weeks since he was kicked out now, and he’s checked her Facebook almost religiously every day. Sometimes twice a day.

It takes him a moment to process that she’s actually updated. Another few to realise that the update is about him. His eyes slide over the words like they’re glass, pressing in and then bleeding him absolutely dry.

_We regret to inform everyone that we’ve had no choice but to remove Brett from our home, as he was engaging in activities we consider to be sinful and wrong. We hope you all understand in our time of mourning. This was a very difficult decision to make, and even more difficult to announce, due to concern over his whereabouts._

_Mourning_? Brett thinks, devastated. _I’m not dead._

He feels his heartbeat increase, and his head is swimming - the telltale signs of a panic attack in progress. Before he can really break apart in the living room, in front of Mason or Hayden or, God forbid, Liam, who seems to only just be coming out of his shell, he stands up and bolts to the bathroom, shuts the door, and sinks down next to the counter, shaking, his vision blurred with tears and lack of oxygen. He’s hyperventilating. His chest hurts. He can’t breathe. He's tried to pretend he's okay, that it's all fine, but it's not, and it probably won't be again, at least not in a way he's familiar with, and-

“Brett?” Hayden’s knocking on the door. “Brett, are you okay?”

He wants to answer, but he can’t even catch his breath. He can’t breathe. He puts his head down and sobs out, panicking about not getting enough air on top of everything else as well.

“The fuck’s going on? You trying to break the door down?”

Liam. Fuck. He really doesn’t want Liam to see him like this - doesn’t want anyone to see him like this, but not Liam, definitely not Liam-

“Brett’s Facebook page - his mom posted something about him.” Hayden sounds distressed. “He just got up and left-”

“Okay.”

“Where are you going?” Mason’s voice asks. “Dude, we-”

“Chill!” Liam’s voice calls, clearly aggravated. “Damn, I’m not going anywhere.”

There’s a pause. Then Liam’s footsteps are coming back, and the bathroom door is opening.

Brett scoots back a little bit; Liam holds a hand out, placating, like he’s a scared animal. He doesn’t feel like much more with the hyperventilating.

“Just me,” Liam says lightly, then shuts the door behind him. His tone is remarkably even, almost soothing. “Check this out.”

Brett’s kind of bewildered, at least remotely, when Liam comes inside, sits on the tiles with him, and pulls out a deck of cards. He can barely even see with the tears blurring his eyes; Liam’s wearing his glasses.

“So I watched those magic movies the other day,” Liam says. “The ones with James Franco’s brother in them? What’s his name? I dunno. Anyway, I decided I was gonna learn card tricks, because I’m lame.” He fans out the deck with a look of utter concentration. “Pick a card.” He scoots closer, holds the deck out.

What the fuck is he doing? Brett wonders, even as he reaches out, shakily, and pulls a card from the deck. Liam’s not even acknowledging his panic attack, or his crying, or-

“Hey, stick with me,” Liam says. “Now put the card back.”

Brett shoves it back into the deck haphazardly; Liam does something with his hands, and his tongue is sort of sticking out, and it’s cute as fuck. Even coming down from a meltdown, Brett recognises that.

“Was this your card?” Liam asks, yanking a six of spades from the deck.

“No,” Brett croaks.

“Fuck,” Liam says dejectedly. “Okay. Try me again.”

So Brett picks another card, puts it back in the deck, and Liam produces one, asking if it was his. The answer is no every time; Liam’s pretty crap at magic, it turns out. And they repeat it enough times that he has plenty of chances to get it right - and Brett has time to catch his breath.

“Did you read the post?” he mumbles. He’s still sort of low-key crying, but he’s not hyperventilating anymore. His head hurts, though, and his stomach.

Liam leans up, grabs an abandoned up on the counter, and fills it with water, passing it to him. “Yeah. I did. And the comments.”

Brett shakes his head, knowing that he’s working himself up again. “I fucked their lives up,” he says. “I ruined it.”

“No you didn’t,” Liam says.

“If I hadn’t come out, this never would have happened,” Brett whispers. “I should’ve just… dated girls exclusively or something. I could’ve gotten away with it.”

Liam hesitates for a long time before answering, probably because he recognises that Brett’s sort of technically right and respects him enough not to lie. Then, “Guess you could’ve. Then what happens when you meet a guy you really like?”

Brett hangs his head for a moment, lifts it again, and tries to drink some of the water. Liam watches him carefully; after a moment, he gives up on shuffling and re-shuffling the cards in his hand and reaches out, puts it on Brett’s shoulder gently.

The touch, while immediately soothing, reminds Brett of his primary issue: he’s insanely attracted to Liam, because he’s bisexual, which is why he’s even in this situation.

“I did this to them,” Brett moans.

Liam doesn’t hesitate this time. “You didn’t do this to them,” he says. “Fuck, dude, you aren’t a hurricane. You weren’t some sorta disaster that happened and ruined them. _They_ did this to _you_. They kicked you out. They announced it on Facebook and they’re being told to fuck themselves and serves them right.”

Brett swallows thickly. He can hear Hayden and Mason murmuring outside the bathroom door. “They gonna stay until I stop crying?” Brett mumbles, embarrassed.

Liam turns around and leans back, sticks his head out the door, and hangs onto the doorframe. “We’re trying to have a game of Go Fish in here,” he says, quite seriously. Brett laughs - a wet, miserable sound.

“Right, sorry,” Mason’s voice says. “Serious business. I get it.”

“Damn straight,” Liam mumbles, and Brett realises Liam’s sitting next to the front door like a little pit bull, ready to fight for his privacy. He smiles a little.

“Thanks.”

Liam slides the box of tissues across the floor at him. “No problem.”

Brett takes a few. “You really think it’s their fault?”

“Yes,” Liam says simply. “You don’t?”

“I guess I… they didn’t hit me or anything, I…”

“Fuck, dude,” Liam murmurs. “My dad belted me up and my mom ignored me, yeah. But I always had a roof over my head and food on the table. As fucked up as it is they never would’ve thrown me out; I left on purpose. They abused you. Just 'cause your damage doesn’t look the same as mine doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

“They never hit me, though,” Brett says softly.

“It isn’t a competition of who has it worse,” Liam says with a humourless smile. “They let us down. That’s it.”

_They let us down_. Brett turns the concept over in his head. He doesn’t like to think about it, but they did, really. They were supposed to protect him - and they ended up causing him more harm than anyone ever has.

“It’s kind of a shitty boat to be in,” Brett says softly, “but I’m glad you’re in it with me.”

Liam actually smiles at him. “Yeah, dude. Always.”

_What happens when you and the others run out of charity_? Brett wonders, but he can’t help the feeling of warmth that spreads through him at Liam’s words. It’s been a long road to earning even a semblance of Liam’s trust, but he’s here. On thin ice, maybe… but here.

~*~

“Brett?”

Brett turns. Liam’s voice is muffled, because Brett’s got the door to the tiny balcony and fire escape shut, trying to keep the warmth in the apartment.

“Out here,” he says.

Liam appears in the doorway, wearing a beanie and gloves, holding two tall cups of coffee. “Hi,” he says, sounding curious. Brett reaches back and slides the door open. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Just getting some fresh air,” Brett says. He’s pleasantly surprised when Liam sits down next to him, carefully, holding the coffee cups like they’re made of glass. He smiles as he turns and passes one to Brett.

“Got this for you.”

“Mm, thanks.” Brett sips at it; Liam threads his legs between the bars on the fire escape and stares out across the brief expanse of snow, grass, and trees between their lot and the next. Turning his head right, Brett can see the street, and people moving around in the apartments opposite them.

“Last time we were out here, I was drunk,” Liam says.

“So you admit now that you were drunk?”

Liam sniffs. “Never said that,” he says, sipping his coffee. Brett grins as he does that little eyebrow tilt - it’s a playful gesture, a single muscular tic that lets Brett know he’s not actually chagrined.

“Right. Of course not. You won’t admit to being drunk.”

“Never,” Liam confirms.

There’s a long pause. Liam leans his right arm against the railing and puts his forehead on it, peering to his right, where the street is.

“Kinda cold out,” Liam says, but he makes no move to go inside, or to persuade Brett to. Instead, he pulls his beanie off and tugs it down over Brett’s head - Brett’s heart about leaps out of his chest with the sensation, with the realisation that Liam is willingly reaching out and touching him and showing him affection. Liam, who’s so reserved and prickly and generally standoffish he’s been almost impossible to get to know.

“I suppose so,” Brett says, pulling the beanie down a little bit. “Nice, though. Just to be out.”

Liam nods, then looks to his hands. “What’re you reading?”

Brett holds his book up. “'The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible’,” he says softly.

“T. E. Lawrence,” Liam replies.

Brett almost beams. “You know it?” Liam surprises him every time he picks up on a particularly obscure reference to literature or history - Liam seems to be fairly intelligent outside what he studies, which means he must be well-read, but he can’t see many books around Liam’s bedroom.

Liam nods. “I have a book of all his published letters and the Seven Pillars Of Wisdom. It’s pretty heavy stuff, I don’t understand a lot of it. But that stuck with me I guess.”

“But you read it all the way through anyway?”

“I wanted to understand it.” Liam fidgets with his coffee cup, beginning to peel away the outer layer. “History’s important, you know? Humans do really screwed up shit to each other. Only way to not repeat it is to make sure we don’t forget it.”

Brett stares at him, really wishing he could kiss Liam about now. He thinks he could possibly be falling totally head over heels in love, and it feels so different and strange to the first time he was in love. Deeper, more real. Liam’s not just a conquest; he’s a kindred spirit. Hurt and just trying to staunch the flow of blood in whatever way he can.

He shuffles over, presses his thigh and arm against Liam’s. The backs of their hands touch; Liam’s holding his coffee with his left, Brett his right. Liam’s hands are smaller than his, his fingers a little thicker, nails bitten down. There are obvious veins in his wrists.

Liam returns the pressure a little bit. “Don’t tell anyone I’m actually a nerd, okay?” Liam asks. “It’ll ruin my street cred.”

Brett smiles. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

~*~

Brett’s been staying with them for seven weeks when, one night, Liam brings out his guitar and sits in the living room, strumming quietly and turning the knobs on the neck to tune it. Hayden joins them after a while, then Mason.

“You wanna play something?” Hayden asks.

“Yeah, let’s bring back music nights,” Mason says cheerfully. “Haven’t had one in months.”

“You have music nights?” Brett asks, smiling.

“Yeah.” Hayden smiles at him. “Mason gives us a song, Liam plays guitar, and I sing. We haven’t done one in a while.”

“So what are you singing now?” he asks.

Liam’s tuning his guitar carefully, seeming totally concentrated on it, but Brett can see him peering at him from the corner of his eye. They’ve been strangely, exhilaratingly in sync ever since Liam got drunk on the fire escape; Brett’s not used to it, and looking at Liam makes him nervous and excited and scared and happy all at once. He’s even fairly sure Liam feels the same way, not that he’s letting on.

“I wrote the sheet music,” Liam replies quietly. “And Hayden wrote the lyrics.”

He knows it’s gonna take way more time for Liam to open up to him - to really, truly let him in and be vulnerable with him. Him being drunk was different; it lowered Liam’s walls through the hazy confusion it caused, but only temporarily - only enough for Liam to let Brett get close. Now that he’s better, Brett isn’t going to push him into making any decisions; the key to nurturing this tiny, fragile seed of trust they’re growing together is letting Liam come to him in his own time. Liam needs to know Brett won’t force him.

“That’s cool,” he says. “It’s like a tiny, intimate concert.”

Liam’s lips tug upwards in an almost reluctant smile. He looks away from Brett and strums lightly at the guitar strings. “I’m good,” he tells Hayden.

Liam’s own parents didn’t love him the way they should have, and Brett knows just how bad that can fuck up a person’s trust. He can see now that Liam’s attitude is a shield, that he’s blunt because he doesn’t know any other way, that he struggles not to sabotage his own relationships. Brett wants to be another reason - along with Hayden, Mason, Mrs. Xhu, and all the other kind strangers in Liam’s life - for Liam to reconsider.

“Okay,” Hayden says cheerfully. “Ready?”

Liam nods, and Brett watches as his foot taps three times before beginning to strum the guitar. The noise that floats from it is mellow, soothing - almost fragile with the hiss of Liam’s fingertips against the strings and the otherwise silent apartment.

_“What a strange being you are_

_God knows where I would be if you hadn’t found me sitting all alone in the dark…”_

Hayden’s got a beautiful voice, Brett realises. Her and Liam must have been doing this for a while, because her tone lilts and rises perfectly with every chord Liam plucks, and she’s totally in sync with the rhythm, despite the fact that nobody counted aloud for her.

_“A dumb screenshot of youth_

_Watch how a cold broken teen will desperately lean on a superglued human of proof…”_

Brett’s staring when Liam glances up. He wants to look away, but it’s like Liam eyes instantly trap him - they’re almost glowing, his gaze is so intent.

_“What the hell would I be without you?_

_Brave face talk so lightly, hide the truth…”_

The way Liam’s looking at him is all the confirmation Brett really needs that there are feelings there - that they’re as real and as tangible as the way Liam’s hand gripped his shoulder during his bathroom metldown, the way Brett stroked Liam’s back when he was hungover. They’re real. Brett’s not even sure Liam realises it, but he can see it, right there, in Liam’s eyes, in the way his body is angled towards Brett and not Hayden.

_“‘Cause I’m sick of losing soulmates_

_So where do we begin?_

_I can finally see you’re as fucked up as me, so how do we win?”_

Liam looks away, but Brett can’t. He’s watching Liam’s fingertips flash across the neck of the guitar, the pick glinting in his grip like a luminescent fish in the water.

_“We will grow old as friends, I’ve promised that before_

_So what’s one more?_

_In a grey haired circle, waiting for the end…”_

Friends first, Brett thinks. That’s the way this has to go; Liam can’t keep doing casual hookups and random sex. Even though it’s obviously a coping mechanism, it’s doing more harm than good. Brett’s going to be his friend, and then his boyfriend or nothing at all - he’s not going to be another poisonous notch on Liam’s bedpost.

_“Time and hearts will wear us thin_

_So which path will you take ‘cause we both know a break_

_Does exactly what it says on the tin…”_

And he can do this. He knows he can. He knows Liam’s history, and he thinks he can work with it, probably. Liam might push him away a little - he has before when Brett’s gotten too close too quickly - but Brett knows, now, that it’s just to test Brett - to see if he’ll come back anyway.

Liam looks up at him, smiles a little bit, and looks away. His foot is still keeping tempo with the song, and Hayden’s smiling. Brett wonders why they don’t do this more often if it’s so soothing to the both of them.

_“Yeah I’m sick of losing soulmates_

_Won’t be alone again_

_I can finally see you’re as fucked up as me_

_So where do we begin?”_

~*~

Brett waits until Mason and Hayden have retired to approach Liam.

He’s at the sink, doing dishes, when Brett ventures closer to him. “Hey,” he says. “Want me to dry?”

“Sure,” Liam agrees.

He pulls the tea towel off the oven handle and steps up next to Liam. The hairs on his arm stand on end; Liam’s movements stumble, ever so slightly, before resuming with perfect rhythm. Brett sees his eyes dart to the side, to inspect Brett, and then away again.

Brett picks up the first plate and starts drying. It’s snowing outside, but the air between them crackles with electricity. Brett could probably tell anybody who’d listen how far apart they are, right down to the exact millimetre. It’s like his body knows exactly where Liam is.

“You’re good on the guitar,” Brett says, not really sure how to start a conversation. Which is ridiculous; they know each other pretty well by now.

“Thanks,” Liam says.

Brett gives him a small smile. Liam doesn’t seem to know what to say either. It’s sort of comforting in a way; Liam can obviously feel that there’s… something, here, between them. Even if he’s not quite sure what it actually is.

“So is the song about anyone in particular?” Brett asks.

“All the people who used to fuck her over, I think,” Liam says. “I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular when I put the chords together though. Thinking about changing a few now.”

“Really?” Brett asks, surprised. “I thought it sounded good. How come?”

Liam looks up at him, gives him a tiny, bashful smile, and looks back down.

Oh, Brett realises, feeling breathless. He swallows and looks down at the plate he’s holding. “You could always write a new one,” he says weakly. “You could do like… sequels. Do songs have sequels?”

“This one wouldn't," Liam says. "This one would have a reprisal."

“And what are those?”

“Well, it’s the same song. The same rhythm. Just… with a little more, or a little less, or extra instruments. They’re like the artist looking at the music and going well, what would I have done over? What could I improve on?”

“And would you be adding to the song?” Brett asks. “Or subtracting things from it?”

Liam looks up at him and smiles. “Adding.” He finishes up with the last dish and puts it on the rack. Then, in one swift movement, he’s scooping up foam from the sink and putting it on Brett’s face.

Brett’s jaw drops. Liam grins at him, obviously pleased with himself.

“You-”

“Have a shower,” Liam interrupts, smiling. “Come to bed. We have a movie to finish.”

Brett has a shower, quickly, because he really wants to retire and Liam seems to be in a really good mood. When he exits the bathroom, he sees that the blankets and pillows on the couch have been cleaned up, and that all his things are gone.

The strange thing is, Brett doesn’t think for even a second that he’s being thrown out. He smiles a little as he heads to Liam’s room and opens the door.

Liam smiles at him guiltily.

“You got rid of my bed,” Brett teases.

Liam motions to his set of drawers. “I um,” he says, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. “I cleaned out a drawer. Must suck to live out of a bag, you know?”

“You cleaned out one of your drawers?” Brett asks softly.

Liam pauses for a second. “It’s your drawer now,” he mumbles, rubbing his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it-”

“You didn’t make it anything,” Brett says with what he hopes is an encouraging smile. “Come on. Help me unpack?”

Liam smiles brightly - Brett’s probably never seen him smile like that - like Brett’s just handed him the secrets to life.

Liam starts passing Brett his clothes. It doesn’t take them long; Brett doesn’t have to refold anything, because he’s been trying to keep the huge duffel bag he brought neat. It’s just a matter of sorting it all out.

When they’re done, Liam pushes his duffel beneath the bed and smiles again, happily. “You’re all moved in,” he announces.

Brett smiles. It’s not his own room, but somehow the fact that he’s pretty permanently sharing Liam’s means a lot more to him than being given a spare. This is Liam’s space, and Brett’s in it - he’s been invited into it. After seven painstaking weeks of trying to teach Liam to trust him - to even like him in the first place - Brett’s earned a little spot in Liam’s life. And that feels pretty good.

They settle for the night. Liam’s doing homework, curled up in bed because it’s too cold to be outside the blankets. Whatever he’s doing looks pretty fucking complicated - Brett can see lots of old Greek symbols and brackets and numbers - so Brett leaves him to it, goes on his own laptop.

He’s gnawing his lip as he loads his mom’s Facebook page. She’s posted a few memes, some photos of her garden. Nothing else. Not even a hint that he’s gone, she misses him, or that maybe she feels remorse.

“You shouldn’t check up on people who don’t check up on you,” Liam says quietly.

Brett looks over at him. Liam’s wearing his glasses, and he looks soft and sympathetic. “I can’t help it,” Brett murmurs. “I keep thinking one day I’ll wake up and she’ll be announcing how wrong she was… how much she regrets doing what she did. And dad, too. But I can see Mom’s Facebook, you know?”

Liam hesitates for a moment; he looks like he wants to say something. Finally, he murmurs, “If she does change her mind… you’ll be the first to know. Not anyone she knew in high school thirty years ago.”

It seems like it hurts him to say it. Brett remembers reading that helpful honesty is painful to say and to hear, and he knows Liam didn’t want to say it. But he did, and… Brett needed to hear it.

“I know,” he says softly.

“Do you forgive her?” Liam asks.

Brett pauses to think. Does he? His dad might have been the one who yelled, like he was angry. But his mother’s disappointment… that felt worse, still feels worse, somehow. He can deal with the anger. But the disappointment? Her cold shouldered indifference to his wellbeing, while he could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere?

“No,” he says.

Liam nods. “Makes sense. I wouldn’t. Haven’t.”

“Do you think you could?”

Liam shrugs. “Yeah. I could. If I wanted to. But I don’t, that’s the thing. I don’t want to forgive her. I want her to know I’m mad and I want her to hurt for it. Is that really fucking evil of me? Probably. But sometimes, man, it’s like…” Liam waves a hand carelessly. “Sometimes the anger is the only thing that keeps me going, you know? Because if I stop to cry and I stop to feel hurt about it, it’s like I’m letting them win. But the anger? I choose that.” Liam shakes his head. “You don’t need to tell me how unhealthy that is, by the way.”

“I wasn’t going to.” It makes an odd kind of sense. “And… yeah. It doesn’t make you evil. Makes you human.”

Liam hesitates. “I wanna be better than that,” he says quietly. “I want to be a better person than that. I don’t want… I don’t want to hurt other people just because that’s what’s been done to me, you know? But it’s hard. I don’t see people. I see potential bad experiences. It fucks up pretty much any relationship I manage to maintain for more than a week. I’m getting better. But it’s not easy, and it’s just… so much safer not to let people in.”

“If you don’t let them in, you can’t be hurt when they leave,” Brett says softly.

“Pretty much,” Liam sighs.

“That why you were so cold with me?”

“I didn’t mean to be,” Liam replies quietly. “But I knew you were leaving. I thought I knew anyway. And the next day, I still thought I knew that. And the day after. It… it was only safe after we talked and decided you could stay.”

“I didn’t think you liked me at all,” Brett says, surprised. “I thought Hayden and Mason had to convince you.”

Liam smiles a little. “No. Well. A little. When you got sick… we weren’t gonna drag you to the shelter then, you know? That would’ve been cruel. And after that… we just decided it didn’t matter. But I did like you. Pretty much right from the start.”

“What? Really? Why?”

“When I made you your drink,” Liam says. “The first day? You talked to me. And you asked for my name. Nobody’s ever done that before.” He looks down and smiles a little, bashfully. “And you said my coffee art was good, and I am actually pretty proud of that.”

Brett smiles. “Hayden was right, then?”

“Don’t make me say it aloud.”

Brett laughs, then looks back at his laptop. He sighs as he clicks out of Facebook and opens up Don’t Starve instead.

“Have you ever played Don’t Starve Together?” Liam asks him suddenly.

“Nope. Shockingly, there are no other people my age who I know, in real life, who want to play a Tim Burton-inspired survival game.”

Liam smiles. “I’ll play it with you.”

“Don’t you have homework?”

“If I look at any more alpha and beta values, I’m going to claw my eyes out.”

“Alpha and beta values? Huh?”

Liam laughs. “Alpha,” he says, pointing to one of the little squiggles on the screen, “and beta.” He points to another.

“I thought you were talking about werewolves or some shit.”

Liam smiles as he boots up the game. Soon enough, they’re playing - Liam wanders off for almost five in-game days and returns with over three hundred rocks, which allows them to build a fort. Brett thinks, privately, that Liam’s kind of insane.

Eventually, Liam’s yawning and rubbing his eyes sleepily; his glasses are getting shoved around. “I’m gonna get ready for bed,” he murmurs.

“We didn’t finish the movie,” Brett teases.

“I just said that so you’d notice your couch-bed was gone.” Liam slides out and shivers as his feet hit the ground. “I hate winter.”

“It’s not all bad,” Brett says, resolutely not staring at Liam’s butt as he leaves the room. Brett’s already brushed his teeth and showered, so he stays puts - closes his laptop and puts it on Liam’s set of drawers, then lies down with a sigh.

Liam pads back into the room and crawls under the covers, burrowing down until only his eyes and hair are visible. He yawns, but keeps his eyes open.

There’s a weird tension in the air that wasn’t there before. Brett tries to ignore it, but this time around, it’s not coming from him - it’s coming from Liam, he thinks, this time around.

Liam rolls and turns the lamp off, plunging them into darkness. There’s the barest glow from the stars through the window; Brett can see Liam looking at him, but he’s tired, and he feels his eyes start to close.

“Why don’t you ever touch me?”

Brett’s eyes fly open; he can’t see in the darkness, but he can feel the stillness in the air. When he rolls onto his side, tucking his hand beneath the pillow, Liam looks back at him - apprehensive, clearly, the strip of purple hair almost black. There’s no moon tonight.

“I didn’t…”

Liam turns to look at him when he trails off. He seems almost scared, or hurt, or some other emotion that Brett hasn’t seen him express before.

“When you told me about your parents - your dad,” Brett says. “How he used to belt you up. I thought… I never see Hayden or Mason touch you either, and I thought that was why. Because of-”

“What my dad did,” Liam finishes softly.

“Yeah.”

There’s a long silence. Liam turns his head so he can look at Brett; Brett looks back at him. Liam’s eyes seem black in the room, no blue around the pupils.

“When I was sick,” Liam says quietly. “When I was hungover? You touched me then. You know, stroked my neck and back and wiped my face with that towel, the wet one. It was really nice. I’ve never had anyone do that before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology.”

Brett hesitates. He hates not being able to read the subtle shifts on Liam’s face, the inflections of emotions behind his eyes and lips and in his forehead and eyebrows. He sits up, reaches over Liam, and flicks the lamp on.

Liam winces. “Ow.”

“Sorry.” Brett settles back, more at ease now that he can see Liam’s face. “I wanted to see you.”

Liam smiles like he wasn’t expecting to hear that, but he doesn’t say anything.

“So… you don’t want an apology?” Brett asks slowly.

“No,” Liam murmurs.

“What do you want?” Brett murmurs.

Liam opens his mouth, then closes it. He looks lost.

Brett hesitates. Thinks that maybe Liam doesn’t really know how to initiate affection or touching that isn’t sexual in nature. Thinks that Liam’s method of coping with all his hurts - through sex; through alcohol; through anything that fucks up his hormones enough to stop him thinking about his wounds - has lead to him barely recognising that affection without sex is an option.

He’s careful when he moves, because he promised himself he would never take advantage of Liam - never hurt him or use him or make him think that Brett’s in it for orgasms, never give him reason to doubt Brett’s genuine affection and concern for him. He doesn’t want that.

He sidles up next to Liam under the covers. Their thighs touch; Liam tangles their legs together, curls his toes against Brett’s calf muscle. His feet are freezing, but Brett makes no move to shrug him off. He rises up on his elbow instead, curling his torso over Liam’s body silently.

Liam lies still. He looks mildly confused, but not afraid or reluctant.

Brett only hesitates a moment before using his other hand to push Liam’s hair out of his face, then start to stroke it properly. With it all pushed back, he can see that it’s a little longer and softer - that Liam has about half an inch of his natural, sandy-blonde hair showing at the base of the purple. He probably needs to recolour it soon.

“I know you think I hate this,” Brett murmurs, twisting the violet strands around his fingertips, “but I don’t.” He admires the way the colour contrasts with his skin, how glossy and soft and healthy it is, slipping through his grip like it’s a living, breathing thing.

“You do?” Liam asks softly.

“Yeah. I know you think I don’t. But I really actually do.”

“Why?”

“It’s just different. Unique. Why’d you do it?”

Liam shrugs. “I’m not like everyone else. Guess I wanted people to know.”

“You’re okay.”

“I’m fucked up. That’s fine though.” Liam shuffles closer. “I don’t really know anything different. People must feel kinda sorry for me, I think. When they realise what I’m like. But I don’t know different. It’s always been like this… _I’ve_ always been like this.”

He’s not saying it for the hell of it; when Brett meets his eyes, Liam’s gaze is cool and assessing. He’s making sure Brett knows.

“I know,” Brett murmurs.

The air between them is thick with unspoken words and heavy with the emotions bleeding through their pores and out of their eyes. Liam’s gaze feels like the reverberations left after endless rolls of thunder - feels like the loaded silence in between them, the anticipation of knowing there will be more, if not immediately, then later. Again.

Something’s going to give here, Brett can feel it. One of them is going to do something, say something, that changes everything their relationship is - something that will only make its depths murkier, not clearer, something that will be irreversible. If this goes wrong…

He doesn’t get to contemplate that. Liam moves, his hand reaching for Brett’s neck, his expression broken open and bleeding, and his fingers curl into the soft hairs at the base of Brett’s skull and he’s pulling him down, down, and-

And he hesitates, right before they touch. Their lips are a bare inch apart, and Liam freezes. Brett can hear his breathing, how rapid it is. Liam’s nervous. Somehow that knowledge is comforting to him.

“Being around you makes me feel fucking _crazy_ ,” Liam breathes out in a whisper. “I feel like I can’t breathe half the time and like there isn’t enough air the other half. I’m always fucking looking for you when I go to a different room. And everything - everything feels different when you’re around, intense, like…”

“… Like every nerve ending on your body is on fire?” Brett asks softly.

“ _Yes_ ,” Liam breathes. “Yes, exactly.”

“Me too,” Brett whispers.

Liam’s expression gives way, crumples, with relief, and he’s closing the gap between them - fitting their lips together and Brett swears it actually singes him, like Liam’s fire and Brett’s a moth, helplessly drawn in, instantly mesmerised, and totally drunk on the feeling - powerless to pull away even as it feels like Liam is burning him up from the inside out.

Liam’s hand squeezes the back of Brett’s neck; he whimpers against Brett’s mouth, a quiet, keening, mournful sound that almost seems painful. Brett strokes Liam’s cheek with his thumb, attempting to soothe him. It only occurs to him in the next second that maybe being soothed is the opposite of what Liam really needs.

Liam pulls away for a moment. “Did you want to do that?” he whispers, his voice breaking. Seeing Liam truly vulnerable and still beneath him has Brett’s heart squeezing so hard it’s painful; it hurts to know that Liam’s likely never done this with anyone before, that the notches on his bedpost have never amounted to anything more, that there were no seconds of anything. Liam knows false starts and bad endings, and Brett wants to change that.

So he leans down and he kisses Liam again, and again, on his lips and cheeks, his brow. Liam arches up into the attention like he’s starved for it - and maybe he is.

He feels Liam’s hand going for his sweats. “No,” he says, pulling away. “No. Not that.”

“What?” Liam looks shattered. “I thought you wanted-”

“I do, I do.” God, he does; he wants to undress Liam and take him right here, but he can’t, and he won’t. “But not like this. Not because you think it’s the only way to get me to stay. Not because you’re using it to numb whatever parts of you that are hurting. And definitely not as a friends-with-benefits situation.”

“What are you talking about?” Liam asks, his voice breaking. “I thought - you said you felt the same, you-”

Brett knows betrayal when he sees it and an accusation when he hears it. “Hey,” he whispers, palming Liam’s face and wincing when Liam flinches. “Liam, hey. I made a promise to myself, okay? That I was gonna be good for you. I’m your friend first. And I’m not going to let you self destruct by sleeping with me when you don’t want to and torturing yourself about it later.”

There’s a long silence. “Friend first?” Liam asks shakily.

“Yeah. Friends first.”

Liam swallows. “And… then what?”

“Partners,” Brett says. “If that’s what you want. But I’m not having sex with you tonight. I’ll be your friend or I’ll be your boyfriend or I’ll be both. But I’m not going to be a convenient tool for you to justify your abandonment with.”

There’s a pause. It drags out so long Brett worries he’s gone too far or fucked up and said the wrong thing, that Liam might throw him out.

Liam swallows and licks his lips, tugs on the collar of his shirt. “You’re smarter than me,” he says softly. “I don’t like it.”

Brett smiles, feeling relieved. “No I’m not.”

“It’s a good thing.” Liam adjusts. “Hey, I didn’t say you could stop stroking my hair,” he mumbles.

Brett smiles, tilts his head, and keeps stroking. He watches Liam fall asleep like that, the light still on, and marvels at how close he’s gotten. At how close Liam’s let him get.

“I’m not going to be like the rest,” Brett whispers. Liam only stirs a little. “I’m not going to hurt you like that. I’ll be different. This time, it’ll be different.”

He leans over Liam, switches the light off, and listens to Liam breathe until he falls asleep.

~*~

When he wakes up in the morning, Liam’s gone from the bed.

Brett can hear noises from the kitchen, so he rolls to the edge of the bed and sits up. Liam’s glasses aren’t on the bedside table, and he never wears them outside the apartment, so Brett knows he’s here.

He can hear the TV from the hallway and smiles sleepily. When he enters, Liam and Hayden are curled up on the couch, wrapped in a huge, fluffy blanket and watching Adventure Time.

Liam turns when he comes in. He’s wearing his glasses, and Brett swears Liam actually tints pink when he sees Brett. He smiles and lifts the edge of the blanket.

Brett heads over and gets under it with them. He’s bigger than Liam and he has to sort of curl his shoulders in order to fit, but he doesn’t mind. Hayden looks surprised to see Liam letting him so close, but happy, too.

“Morning, Brett,” she says.

“Morning.” He uses his free arm to search for Liam’s hand, finds it tucked down near his hip. He brushes Liam’s fingers curiously with his own, asking, silently, if that’s okay. If the touching is okay.

Liam’s fingers grasp back at him. That spark from last night ignites abruptly, and Brett’s still feeling breathless when he registers the quirk in Liam’s mouth - the beginnings of a smile.

Mason joins them on the couch sometime later, adding another blanket to the mix, and nobody has anywhere to be. Liam leans heavily on Brett’s side, and Mason and Hayden glance at him, at Brett, and then at each other. Hayden gives Brett a huge thumbs-up.

Brett’s starting to think - for the first time in a long time - that things are going to be okay.


	3. Monachopsis: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well well look who crawled out of writer's block HELL
> 
> Nothing much happens in the first part of this part (lol) but we're getting up to the meaty stuff in the next bit! Also should be updating Decibels soon if I get my shit together. **Trigger warnings: mentions of child abuse; flashbacks; homelessness.**
> 
> Thanks for reading & enjoy! <3

**Two: Monachopsis**

_Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place._

~*~

Brett’s been at the apartment for almost two months now.

He can break those two months into neat, if somewhat uneven, chunks of time. The first night and the resulting day seem like they flew by in mere seconds, though Brett remembers every painful, uncertain moment like he’s watching a movie of his own life play out inside his head.

Then, the next week. Going back to the shelter every night. Checking if there were spaces for him. There never was. The slow realisation that he didn’t want to return to the shelter any more than he wanted to actually leave the relative safety of Liam, Hayden, and Mason’s apartment.

The second and third weeks. Settling into a routine; some return of normality, and an odd, but comforting sense of familiarity every time he woke up on the couch, wrapped in blankets to stave off the chill, with some animal or another curled up against him. The realisation that none of his angels have tried to take him back to the shelter for a fortnight; that they’re deliberately buying extra food for him. 

The fourth week. This is when things with Liam change. Liam gets drunk, tells Brett about his family. They talk, in depth, for the first time. Brett’s there when Liam’s hungover and sick at one in the morning. Liam lets Brett touch him, and Brett feels like someone’s given him a little piece of the sky to tuck away in his pocket for a rainy day.

The fifth week. His and Liam’s relationship changes, grows inexplicably, thrillingly deeper. Being in the room with Liam feels like an electric shock straight to his heart. The fifth week is when he realises he wants Liam, more than just as a sexual conquest. The fifth week is charged with some strange, wonderful emotional tension - something that’s waiting to give, buckling slowly, but holds on. Stubbornly, but effectively, holds on.

The sixth week. Liam gets the flu. Brett’s the only one in the apartment and spends most of his time taking care of Liam, or trying to. Liam rewards his efforts with letting Brett get closer than he’s ever been - confiding in him, letting Brett rub his back, sharing brief, disjointed snippets of stories with him. The sixth week is the week Brett feels like he’s touched the rippling surface of Liam’s soul and realised its emotional depth. That part doesn’t scare him; the part that scares him is that he wants to jump right in and drown.

And then… the seventh week. A lot happens in the seventh week; Liam and Hayden begin to play music together in the living room. Brett’s still sleeping in Liam’s bed. The first night he hears Liam play the guitar, they stand in the kitchen together and Brett knows. Brett knows Liam feels exactly the same way he does.

That night, they kiss. It’s a soft, innocent thing, and Liam kisses like Brett’s the only breath of air and he’s a drowning man, and it almost hurts. He stops things before they go further, and…

And now they’re here. Week eight. Brett’s stomach still flutters with nerves whenever Liam’s around. Right now, “around” happens to be on Brett’s chest, fast asleep.

It is cute, he has to give Liam that. Liam’s strict no-cuddling rule has gone absolutely out the window in the face of their relationship shifting into… well, whatever this is. They’re more than friends; they kiss (a lot, which Brett is definitely not against) and fall asleep tangled up, but there’s been nothing beyond that. They’re existing in a strange, uncertain, exciting place between friend and partner, and Brett’s not even particularly worried about putting a label on it.

The label isn’t important. What’s important is that Liam feels safe enough with him to throw his left arm and leg over Brett’s body and let his head loll awkwardly on Brett’s bicep and upper shoulder, his hair chaotic and sticking up in every direction. That Liam didn’t change his mind or push him away after their first kiss.

If Hayden and Mason know the extent of what’s going on, they haven’t let on. The most they’ve seen is that Liam’s close to him, almost always, and wants to be close to him - that Brett’s not usually the one initiating. They don’t kiss around Hayden or Mason. It’s not a conscious decision, at least not on Brett’s part; it happens mostly in private, in Liam’s bedroom, and Brett thinks that maybe Liam’s bedroom is the only place on earth he feels totally at ease, has his walls down, and can truly be affectionate without worry.

Brett’s arm is going numb. He nudges Liam off him, rolls Liam onto his side, and spoons him, sighing happily. Liam’s bed seems so much bigger when they aren’t carefully keeping a foot of space between them, and Liam smells amazing, almost all the time - like fabric softener and whatever deodorant he uses and, underneath that, distinctly like himself. A scent that’s just… Liam.

Brett sighs. Liam has today off from work, but he’s got class, and Brett sort of wants to beg him to stay home and they can… well, Brett’s not sure what they can do. Liam seems to like being out on his days off, and home all the time if he has to work or go to class.

“Liam,” he whispers. “Liam, wake up.”

Liam groans. “Mm, yeah?”

Brett smiles as Liam rubs his eyes sleepily, then rolls over, his hair adorably mussed and soft where it brushes Brett’s arm. “Morning,” Brett says.

Liam squints at him sleepily. “You woke me up to say good morning?” he mumbles, yawning and tucking his face against Brett’s shoulder. Brett almost goes breathless with the motion; every time Liam seeks warmth or comfort from him, it’s like another tiny affirmation that Liam trusts him - doesn’t just want to trust him, but actually trusts him.

“Actually,” Brett says, “I just said morning.”

Liam cracks his eyes open properly, eyes still hazy with sleep, pupils wide. “I hate you,” he mumbles, but he’s smiling as he turns to bury his face properly into Brett’s chest, and his voice is laced with affection.

Brett grins; Liam’s rolling, so they’re pressed stomach-to-stomach, their legs tangled and Liam’s head under his chin. If there’s anything he’s worked out, it’s that Liam’s actually pretty affectionate, at least with him, now that he feels safer.

“How many classes have you got today?” Brett asks, squeezing Liam tightly.

“Mmm,” Liam murmurs. “Just one. Just a lecture.”

Liam’s phone buzzes. “Who is it?” he asks Brett, who can see from his position.

Brett peers at it. _Mom_ is flashing across the top of the screen. “Your mom,” he says quietly. “You want me to get it for you?”

“Nope.” Liam settles in closer to him, as if the phone is poisonous and he wants to get as far from it as he possibly can. “Haven’t spoken to her in months and it’s been going well for me. I don’t plan on changing that anytime soon.”

Brett nods. He doesn’t understand, but he’s perfectly happy for Liam to do whatever he has to in order to be mentally healthy. If that means ignoring his mother’s calls every time she tries to contact him, Brett’s behind him.

“You should skip your lecture,” Brett says with a smile.

“What? Why?”

“Just this one,” Brett reassures him. “We could do something.”

Liam peers up at him. “Like what?” He sounds… not enthusiastic, that’s for sure, and his expression is closed off. Liam’s wounds and trust issues run almost all the way to the core of his soul, which is painful for Brett to learn and experience. He knows he’s not going to hurt Liam, but Liam doesn’t know that. Whatever Liam thinks “something” is, it’s clear he doesn’t think it’s anything good.

“Like…” Brett thinks. “You ever been ice skating?”

“I’ll probably die, Brett.”

Brett laughs; Liam sounds flat-out serious. “You won’t die,” he teases. “You’ve never been? Seriously?”

Liam shakes his head. “There’s ice skating round here?” he asks.

“Yeah. I saw an ad for it. Think it’s ten dollars per person or something.” He winces, having just realised Liam would have to pay. “Never mind.”

Liam tilts his head up. “I’ll go ice skating,” he says warily. “But only if you promise not to let me fall.”

“I won’t let you fall,” Brett promises.

“… And you could make that thing. That you made last week?”

“The stir fry?”

“Yeah.”

“Deal. Hey, you know what? Go to your class. I’ll come in with you and we can go after.”

Liam yawns and nods. “Okay,” he says sleepily. “I’m gonna go shower.”

Liam showers; Brett makes them both some breakfast. He used to hate cooking and cleaning, but now, without a job, he likes it - not only does it give him a sense of purpose, it also lets him contribute to the household somehow, even if it isn’t financially.

 _Of all the places I could’ve ended up_ , he thinks, _it was here. It could’ve been a lot worse for me._

Liam’s much shorter than Brett; on the train, they stand packed together as other passengers clamber on and stand irritatingly close to the doors. Liam doesn’t like having people near him; he hasn’t said so, but Brett, now that he knows what he’s looking for, can see the tiny flickers of irritation and nerves in his gaze. He presses closer to Brett, who’s tempted to put an arm around his shoulders, but isn’t sure that it’s allowed. That Liam wants that, or would tolerate it. He already seems jumpy; further unsolicited touch might push him over the edge.

Still. Brett watches him, feeling soft and warm with the knowledge that Liam’s happy to press closer to him in order to escape proximity to others. Even a few weeks ago, Liam didn’t seem to want to be in a room with him. Now…

The train car rocks. Liam’s head bumps his shoulder. He likes that Liam’s smaller than him. He’s not entirely sure why, but he really likes the idea of wrapping Liam up and being able to totally blanket Liam in his own body.

Liam’s listening to music, but he looks up as they’re knocked together by the momentum of the train; he smiles a little. Brett kind of loves it when Liam makes direct eye contact with him. He just loves Liam’s eyes in general.

Liam takes the right earbud out of his ear and holds it up with an even smaller smile. Brett takes it and puts it in; Liam’s listening to Metallica, and Brett doesn’t even like them, but he does like sharing things with Liam, and he feels honestly pretty stoked that Liam apparently likes him enough to not want to shut the entire world out.

Liam looks up at him and licks his lips a little. Brett can see the inner peaks of his collarbones where his t-shirt is sagging a little at the front; he smiles and takes out his phone.

 **To** : Liam Dunbar, 10:19AM  
I really wanna kiss you right now

He could have said it aloud, but he’s not sure Liam would like that. If Liam’s even up for putting a label on whatever it is they’ve got going on. It’s definitely not a typical relationship; Brett’s not sure what it is, really. Some strange, undefined space between friends and lovers; emotional intimacy with very little physical intimacy. He even likes it. He feels like he’s getting to know Liam better - knows that Liam uses sex to feel close to people, as a defence mechanism to not have to really let them in, and knowing he doesn’t act that way with Brett is strangely, wonderfully comforting.

Liam’s phone buzzes; he takes it out of his pocket and opens Brett’s text, reads it, and smiles widely. He looks up.

“Me too,” he whispers, like it’s just between them. Brett quirks his mouth a little bit; Liam’s not moving to initiate anything, so neither will he. It’s enough, right now, to know.

The train stops; Liam squeezes out through the throng of people, and Brett follows quickly, what with the fact that they’re still joined by Liam’s headphones. Once they’re on the platform, he hands them back.

“You take those everywhere,” he notes.

Liam nods. “I uh - I kind of use them to block people out,” he says softly. “I just have a thing about crowded spaces. But, you know. Can’t avoid it. So I just pretend it’s not happening.”

“I’m sorry,” Brett says guiltily. “You didn’t have to share with me if that’s why you’re doing it.”

Liam shrugs. “Being with you makes it easier,” he says. “It’s kind of like having music. I can just pretend everyone else isn’t there.”

“I help?” Brett asks. “How?”

Liam’s starting to blush; he’s looking down. “You’re… you’re bigger than me,” he says uncomfortably. “I dunno. That just helps somehow. I feel like I’ve got daddy issues or some shit.”

Brett winces; he hates the term “daddy issues”, like it’s a blanket thing for people being abused and taken advantage of and then having their trust issues trivialised and turned into a joke. “Why?” he asks.

“I dunno. I just kind of figured… my dad is a lot bigger than I am. I didn’t think… I dunno. I just thought I’d end up with someone my size, or smaller. Because of that. I don’t… like feeling like I’m looking for physical attributes he had.”

Brett nods, carefully choosing his next words. “I think,” he says softly, “that it’s good you can happily be around someone, like me, who’s a lot bigger than you, and not be worried about it. That probably shows that at the very least, you don’t have any hang-ups where physicality is concerned. At least you’re not flinching every time someone taller than you comes near you.”

“… So you’re saying I’m maybe a little _less_ fucked up than I think I am?” Liam asks slowly.

“Yeah.”

Liam turns and grins at him. “Cool,” he says cheerfully. “That’s the first time I’ve ever thought I’m less fucked up than I thought and not more.” When Brett opens his mouth, unsure of what to say, Liam smiles. “It was a joke. You can laugh.”

“I can’t tell,” Brett admits.

“That’s okay. Mason says I’ve got pretty black humour.”

As long as Brett knows it’s okay to laugh, he’s cool with that. He walks Liam to the campus entrance, and then finds a cafe to sit down in. His favourite is probably the Point - it’s divided into two sections, with one for eating and drinking, and one as a study area. People in the study area are left totally alone, which means he’s under no pressure to order or keep ordering.

He connects to the wifi there and opens his Facebook. He ignores his mom’s page and checks on Lori; she seems like she’s doing well. Brett wishes they could talk, but the last time they did, she got into trouble with his parents for “encouraging his deviancy”, so now he just makes sure she’s okay.

Liam’s liked a page about dinosaurs, which honestly is so typically Liam Brett has to smile. He clicks on Liam’s profile next.

Almost all the information Brett initially learned, concerning Liam, came from Facebook, what with Liam being highly reluctant to give anything up. He’s just turned nineteen, he’s in his first year of study in psychology and social sciences, his middle name is James, and he was born on October 20th, 1997. Hayden tells him this makes Liam both a Libra and a Scorpio, not that that means much to Brett. Liam’s just Liam to him.

There’s not much more to Liam’s profile than that - a lot of animal memes, videos from Mason, pictures posted from parties before Brett was around. Liam himself doesn’t seem to use it to post anything - Brett wonders if he knows he even has it sometimes. Well - he must, because he just liked a page about dinosaurs, but still. Brett can definitely imagine Liam being a crotchety old man about the constant updates and notifications.

 **To** : Liam Dunbar, 11:27AM  
Dinosaurs? Really? Lmao

That is one thing he likes about Liam, though, that he didn’t expect - Liam’s interested in everything. Literally everything. Brett’s never seen him roll his eyes at the chosen topic of conversation or not be able to contribute to anything; when he doesn’t know something, he looks it up and comes away with a pretty good understanding of it. Liam loves to learn and has a really wide pool of basic knowledge. Brett loves that.

 **From** : Liam Dunbar, 11:31AM  
Fuck you, dinosaurs are cool

 **To** : Liam Dunbar, 11:32AM  
Which is your favourite?

Liam doesn’t reply; Brett doesn’t blame him, what with him being in class and everything. He looks fondly at Liam’s profile picture; him and the three dogs still. He hasn’t changed it, and it was uploaded almost a year ago now.

We don’t have any photos together, Brett muses. We should change that. Even though he’s not really my boyfriend or anything.

His phone buzzes.

 **From** : Liam Dunbar,11:40AM  
This one! Look at his lil arms :D

First, Brett thinks, smiling. This is the first day Liam’s ever used an emoji while talking to him over text. He loves that it was about a fucking dinosaur, of all things.

 **From** : Liam Dunbar, 11:41AM  
Did u know that the t-rex didn’t actually have the shortest arms? The carnotaurus did. Look at him. Look at his arms

Brett laughs out loud, earning him a few odd glances from the other patrons of the Point. He shakes his head as he closes the image and types back.

 **To** : Liam Dunbar, 11:43AM  
Do you identify with him because he’s little?

 **From** : Liam Dunbar, 11:43AM  
>:(

Brett puts his phone aside and pulls up a job search website. He’s been applying, but most of the time he doesn’t even get a rejection email. It’s discouraging, but all he can do is keep trying, really.

The door to the Point opens sometime later, and Liam’s blown in. He’s windswept, his hair nothing short of absolutely chaotic, and almost every one of Brett’s internal organs flip themselves over nervously when he sees Liam. He’s so smitten it’s ridiculous.

Liam looks around; Brett waves, and Liam smiles at him before going to the counter. Brett realises he’s ordering them coffee and is too late to stop Liam paying. He’s grateful that Liam pays for him, but at the same time… well, maybe he should be keeping a list of all Liam’s kindnesses.

It’s barely a few minutes later when Liam slides into the booth - next to him, not across from him - and passes over a tall cup. “Here,” he says. “Thanks for waiting for me.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” Brett replies. “You didn’t have to-”

“I wanted to,” Liam says cheerfully.

Brett nods, watching as Liam picks up his own cup. “Need help holding it to your mouth?” he asks innocently.

Liam rolls his eyes, and Brett laughs. Liam’s eye-roll has been perfected with years of practice and exposure to “wilfully stupid people” as Liam would put it, and it’s always hilarious to watch. It’s also Liam’s way of telling Brett that he does begrudgingly accept that Brett is funny. So many of Liam’s little tics and actions are the opposite of what they would mean for others, and Brett’s still learning them, but this - this he knows well.

“No, thank you,” Liam says snippily. “Carnotaurus managed and so will I.”

Brett smiles, watching Liam drink. His eyelashes sweep against his cheeks; when he looks up again, his pupils are pinpricks from the light, and all Brett can focus on is the icy blue ring of colour around them.

Liam notices him looking. “Do I have something on my face?” he asks self-consciously.

Brett smiles. “No. Tell me what you did in class today.”

“Really?” Liam asks. “You actually wanna hear about that?”

“Yeah. C'mon. Tell me something interesting.”

“Well um - I did my sociology class, right? It’s kind of an elective, it’s totally out of the left field for me. But basically it’s all about digital media and how it shapes our lives, and this unit’s really different from the rest - instead of being theory-based, the learning is gamified, so-”

“What’s gamified?”

“Oh, sorry. So - gamification is when you… sort of apply gaming reward systems to real-world things. Like you give yourself points whenever you achieve something. It basically satisfies the impulse people have to gain status and achievement, and it’s a pretty effective method of learning, people have figured out, so…”

Brett’s never dated a guy before. Liam doesn’t animate his conversation the same way a girl might; there’s no overt hand gestures, or giggling, or looking down at the table, or tucking hair behind the ear. The only remotely similar part is the way Liam will occasionally look around, like maybe he’s waiting for the right word to strike him. Otherwise, he sort of meets Brett’s eyes - frequently, but never lingering - and is relatively still, his hands around his coffee.

“… So you know, like those star charts we had as kids? When we were in elementary school? You did something good and you got a star for it, and after five or ten stars you could trade it for a pencil or eraser or something? That’s gamification.”

“Right, right.” Brett nods along, even though he’s been pretty mesmerised in watching and hasn’t actually heard some of what Liam was saying. “Should I make you a star chart, then?”

Liam grins. “Fuck you, Brett. Besides, what would you reward me with?”

Brett winks; Liam smiles and laughs again, looks away, shakes his head. And it isn’t awkward; they haven’t done anything more than kiss, but there’s a mutual understanding that they will. Eventually. This is the first guy Brett’s been with, though, and he’s only just starting to understand how different it is from being with a girl, and Liam’s still learning how to separate sex and emotional intimacy in his head as two different things. They both have shit to work out. They’re in it together, though, and that’s a nice feeling. Liam’s fucked up, and he’s fucked up, but at least they aren’t alone in it.

When they’re done with their coffee, Liam suggests going into the inner city for the rest of the day - even though it’s cold and snowing and the pinkish hue on the tip of his nose and the arches of his cheeks perfectly complements the purple splash in his hair.

Still, Brett’s happy to do anything as long as it’s with Liam. They hop on the train again, and Liam doesn’t hesitate before crowding in close to him - even though he doesn’t strictly need to.

 _You’re probably really affectionate_ , Brett thinks, watching the top of Liam’s head as the train sways. _You just need to feel safe first, that’s all._

Their trip to the city is interesting, to say the least. Liam stops in on at least seven different shops and every owner seems to know him on a first-name basis; one place gives them free coffee, and Liam promises, in turn, to set up a few squirrel feeders in the courtyard.

“Is this how you do everything?” Brett asks. “Bartering?”

“Not everything. People think you’re fucking whack if you ask the poor check out chick at Wholefoods if you can trade physical labour for a cantaloupe or whatever. But you know, the privately owned stores? Most people will cut you a deal.”

Brett smiles. “Yeah. It’s nice of you, though.”

Liam shrugs, but he’s blushing a little. “Nobody ever talks anymore,” he mutters. “Not about anything important, anyway. I like-” He cuts himself off.

Brett peers at him; he looks almost embarrassed. “Keep going,” he encourages softly. “You like…?”

“I like hearing peoples’ stories,” Liam mumbles shyly. “Like… where they came from. What their lives are like. I dunno. Makes them seem more real. Just - makes you keep them in mind if you get annoyed.”

“Sonder,” Brett says.

“Sorry?”

“It’s - sort of what you’re describing. The realisation that each passerby has a life as vivid and as complex as your own.”

Liam smiles. “I like that word.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Got any more like that?”

“I dunno, I’ll let you know if any come to mind. Why’s that?”

“It’d be cool to put in a song.”

Brett nods. He’s learned that Liam does write the songs, sometimes, that he and Hayden perform together - Liam writes a lot, actually. He’s got dozens of notebooks, a lot of them totally filled with writing, other bits of paper - napkins, even - stuffed between the pages. Brett doesn’t know what’s in them, only that he can leave the room for a few hours and come back to Liam, in exactly the same spot, scribbling like no time has passed.

He doesn’t mind. Liam wears his glasses when he writes, and Brett thinks his glasses are cute as all hell. And he loves that Liam completely kicks off his jeans - because even though he has a perfectly functional desk, he always writes in bed - but wears baggy sweatshirts over the top.

They head back to the station around two - the world is already getting a little darker, what with it being pretty much the dead of winter. Liam’s started to shiver. He gets cold easily, Brett’s learned. If he thought it would be allowed, he’d drape an arm around Liam’s shoulders to keep him warm.

At the station, the platform is pretty much empty; this isn’t a common time to catch the train, and it’s not really a busy line anyway.

Brett catches sight of a man, sitting on the ground, after a minute or two. He’s holding a cardboard sign - Brett can’t read it from here - and slumped down against one of the vibrantly-lit displays.

His stomach turns uncomfortably; he looks away. The man’s clearly homeless, and seeing him hits a little too close to home for Brett - who’s well aware of the fact that his health is conditional on Liam, Hayden, and Mason’s kindness. It could have easily been him.

Liam notices too. “Is he okay?” he murmurs.

Just as Brett’s about to answer, the man moves. Brett’s relieved. “Looks like it.”

Liam cranes his neck to look at the train times. “Gimme a second,” he mumbles, opening his wallet.

“What are you-”

But Liam’s pulled a ten dollar note out of his wallet - Brett can see it’s all he’s got on him - and is heading over to the man. He crouches a little, and Brett hears him say, “‘Scuse me?”

The man looks up. Liam smiles awkwardly and holds out the money. “Didn’t want it to blow away in the wind,” he says.

The gratitude on the man’s face is indescribable; Brett’s eyes sting at the sight. “Thank you,” he says. “You’re a good kid. What’s your name?”

Liam sits down, cross-legged, on the ground in front of the man. “Liam,” he says.

“Thank you, Liam. I’m Grant.” He holds the note up. “This will probably feed me for a few days.”

“Have you been in the city long?” Liam asks. “Because there’s a cafe on seventeenth street that gives out free sandwiches, fruit, and water to homeless people every day, no matter how many times they come back.”

“I’ll try it,” Grant says, smiling tiredly. He’s got the beginnings of a grizzled beard; he’s older, maybe in his fifties. “Is it far?”

“From here?” Liam asks. “Nah, not that far. Couple of blocks. It’s called Gipetto’s. Can probably make it before the afternoon rush if you leave now.”

Grant nods. “Can I ask you a favour?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Can you help me up?” he asks softly. “I have an injury. It’s hard to get up or down.”

“Yeah, dude.” Liam stands up and turns. “Can you help out, Brett?”

Brett comes over. He’s not sure what’s wrong with him, only that he feels downright nervous to be this close to the man. Still, he admires Liam’s warmth and helps him get Grant onto his feet.

“How were you injured?” Liam asks. “If you don’t mind me asking that is.”

“Iraq. It was my second tour.”

Liam nods solemnly. “I’m sorry, man. Benefits don’t even begin to cover it, right?”

“Not at all. Still, knowing there’s somewhere that gives free food… that’s good.” He looks at Brett, smiles faintly. “Thank you. Brett?”

“That’s my name,” he says softly.

“Are you brothers?” Grant asks.

Liam shakes his head, looking lost, so Brett decides to come clean. “I came here a while ago,” he says. “I was kicked out of home. I just… ended up at the right cafe at the right time, and Liam and his roommates, they gave me a place to stay.”

Grant smiles, and it reaches his eyes, finally. “A little compassion goes a long way,” he says. “Thanks, boys. I’ll get down to that cafe.”

“Tell them Liam sent you,” Liam says. “The owner owes me a favour.”

“I will. Thank you. I’ve said it a lot, I know. But thank you.” He looks at Brett then. “Take care of this one, then,” he says, nodding at Liam. “He’s special.”

Liam flushes spectacularly, and his goodbye and well-wishes are clumsy and shy. Brett smiles at Liam softly.

“He’s right. You are special.”

“I didn’t-”

“Don’t say you didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done. You did. You gave him money, you gave him way more than you had to, and you sat down and talked to him like a person. That’s way more than - hell, Liam, even I didn’t do that. I was so uncomfortable just seeing it…”

Liam nods. “Too close to home?”

“It could’ve been me,” Brett murmurs. “Except it wasn’t, because of you.”

Liam doesn’t say much to that, but when the train finally arrives and they step onto it - they even get seats this time - he presses his thigh into Brett’s, and then, slowly, tangles their fingers together.

Brett almost freezes. Liam’s holding his hand, on the train, where everyone can see it. But he does recognise the action for what it is - Liam’s thanking him. Even though Brett’s the one who should be doing the thanking.

He squeezes Liam’s fingers tightly, and Liam returns the pressure. He’s on his phone - using some silly app, probably - but he sort of glances at Brett from the corner of his eye and smiles a little, softly.

Brett leans close. “What are you playing?”

Liam tilts the phone screen. “Pokemon GO,” he says. “I’m finally getting to live out my dream of being the very best.”

No one pays attention to how close they’re sitting. Or that they’re holding hands on Liam’s thigh. In fact, nobody so much as looks at them. Brett had never imagined that feeling invisible could be a good thing, but he finds it is. As long as Liam can see him, he doesn’t care about anyone else.

No one’s there when they get back to the apartment; Liam almost immediately strips down, out of his regular clothes, and climbs into sweats, a long-sleeved shirt, and a fleece crewneck over the top.

Brett’s sitting in the living room as Liam makes them both hot chocolate; he watches Liam move around the kitchen, hissing as he accidentally splashes himself with hot water. Brett’s just kind of realising - all over again - how fucking lucky he was to end up here.

Liam sinks onto the couch after putting their drinks on the coffee table. “Here,” he says with a small smile.

“Thank you,” Brett says softly. “For everything.”

Liam smiles a little wider, leans forward, and kisses Brett softly. “No problem,” he says. “Thanks for coming with me. It was fun.”

Brett smiles, or tries to; he’s feeling pretty shaken by their encounter, by the realisation that he is, in fact, still essentially homeless and living off borrowed time and patience. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And you make me not weird about trains. And people. Well, a little less weird about people.”

Brett finally feels his smile become genuine; he’s glad he can help somehow. “That’s good. Glad to help.”

Liam leans his back against the arm of the couch, crooks his legs, and tucks his toes beneath Brett’s thigh; he can feel how cold they are even through Liam’s socks and his sweats. “Hey, you know,” Liam says, “Hayden and I are going to the shelter in a few days. To do some volunteer work. Do you like animals?”

“Yeah, I like them okay. Why?”

“Well, do you wanna come with us?” Liam asks. “It’s not paid work or anything, but the owners of the shelter give pretty good references at job interviews.”

“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Brett says - and it would be. Liam seems to really love animals, no matter how busted up or distrustful they are; Jelly seems to be a permanent feature here, but they’ve had cats with missing eyes, a dog with a missing leg, and even a few bunnies since he’s arrived, and Liam loves every single one of them unconditionally. He knows Liam wouldn’t judge him for not wanting to do it, but he does want to - he wants to have that kind of compassion.

“Okay,” Liam says. “I’ll let you know when we’re going next.”

They spend a bit of time making out on the couch - Liam’s impossibly relaxed underneath Brett, happy to let Brett position his arms and legs more comfortably, happy to be the docile one for once. They only stop when they realise the others will be coming home soon; Liam retreats to his room to do homework, and Brett starts dinner.

The first time he’d cooked, Hayden had been mildly horrified - not because the food was bad, but because she thought Brett had taken the Cinderalla jokes too seriously.

Brett was quick to reassure her that he doesn’t mind; he likes the cooking and cleaning, likes being able to contribute one way or another, and really, really loves the way Liam especially reacts to coming home to a clean house.

Brett’s sort of got dinner ready to go by five; that’s around the time Hayden and Mason return home. With Liam studying, they settle down to watch some television.

Mason’s flipping through channels, settles on one streaming Law and Order. Brett doesn’t really like the show, but he’s happy to watch.

Well, he’s happy to watch until it becomes obvious that this particular episode is about domestic violence; even then, he’s surprised when it shows, in graphic detail, exactly what’s happening. Hayden turns away from the screen; her eyes are watering.

“This hits too close to home,” Brett murmurs, thinking of Liam.

“Turn it off,” Hayden says to Mason. “I don’t wanna watch this-”

Mason fumbles with the TV remote, cursing as the batteries jolt around - it’s an old remote, and old TV, and it’s sort of falling apart a little bit.

“What’s that?”

Brett turns; Liam’s standing in the entrance to the hallway, staring at the TV screen with a frighteningly blank expression.

“Liam,” Brett says.

A smack rings out from the speakers - onscreen, one of the kids has been pretty violently struck by their father. Liam flinches and takes a step back.

“Liam,” Brett repeats, lurching off the couch and hurrying to him. “Hey. Hey.” He puts his hands on Liam’s neck gently; Hayden and Mason are staring. “Don’t watch that, okay?”

“I-“ Liam says, and then falls silent. Brett steps close and wraps an arm around Liam’s neck and shoulders gently; Liam hides his face, using one arm to cling desperately to the hem of Brett’s shirt.

“It’s okay,” Brett murmurs gently, and Liam breathes out shakily against him. “It’s okay.” He looks up; Hayden and Mason are still frozen. “Turn it off,” he snaps, without really meaning to.

“Right,” Mason blurts; he smacks the remote against his palm once more, then changes the channel.

Liam’s head fits under his chin; Brett keeps his arm around Liam’s shoulders, using his other hand to grip Liam’s upper arm gently. Liam’s leaning on him a little bit; they stand still like that for a while. Mason and Hayden are staring at them. Brett wonders what’s so strange about any of it, until he remembers Liam saying he doesn’t break down when people can see him.

Liam exhales against his chest, tiredly, like he’s exhausted. Brett squeezes his arm a little.

After a few minutes of just standing there, holding Liam and letting him breathe unsteadily, Brett feels Liam shift as if he’s going to pull away. Brett lets him, reluctantly. Liam’s agency is important right now; Brett doesn’t want him to feel trapped.

“Hey,” Brett murmurs, and Liam looks up at him slowly. His eyes are red, kind of wet; he’s been crying a little. “You okay?”

Liam wipes his eyes on his sleeve, rubs them a little, and nods.

“Okay. Want some tea?” He’s aware that while Hayden and Mason aren’t watching anymore, apparently trying to give them privacy, they’re still sort of paying attention.

“Yeah,” Liam mumbles, his voice husky. “Thanks.”

“I don’t know how to make it,” Brett realises. “Um, maybe Hayden could…?”

She almost jumps off the couch. “Sure,” she says hurriedly, and Brett’s not sure if she’s glad for a reason to leave the room, or glad to be able to help somehow. Liam looks around, almost dazedly, like he’s not quite sure where he is or how he got out here in the first place.

Brett smiles a little, rubs his arms kindly. “Wanna eat something?”

“Yeah. I uh - what is there?”

“We have Chinese,” Mason says hesitantly. “Or leftover spaghetti.”

Liam turns, giving Mason a small, shaky little smile. “Chinese food fixes everything, right?”

“Right,” Mason says eagerly, springing off the couch. “Yeah, I’ll reheat some. We can play Uno or something.”

They’re both tinkering in the kitchen now; Liam wipes his eyes on his sleeve, looking thoroughly overwhelmed. Brett smiles at him kindly, rubs his arms again; the touch seems to ground Liam, because he meets Brett’s eyes.

“You okay?” Brett asks softly.

Liam nods, giving him a tiny, quaking smile.

“Okay. Cool.” Brett’s surprised when Liam steps closer and wraps his arms around Brett’s waist; he holds Liam back, tightly, rubbing circles into the middle of his spine. Liam relaxes against him, slowly, gently.

“Hey, Liam? What - sorry.”

Hayden’s entered the room, spotted them, and is blushing. If they didn’t know something was going on between him and Liam before, they sure as hell do now.

“Uh - green tea?” Liam asks helplessly, apparently aware of what Hayden was going to ask. “Thanks.”

He’s still standing close to Brett - too close to be platonic, too unhesitatingly trusting. He looks up at Brett; he looks kind of scared or - no. Not necessarily scared; fragile. Vulnerable. Brett suddenly doubts he’s ever let Hayden or Mason see him like this.

He remembers, then, Liam saying that he’s only a mess when people aren’t around to see it. His heart sinks. Liam hasn’t let Hayden and Mason help him - even though they clearly want to. Or, worse, he doesn’t know how to let them help him.

Brett strokes Liam’s arms again, gently. “You’re safe here,” he murmurs, and Liam blinks at him. “This is your home, remember? Nothing is gonna hurt you here. Hayden and Mason love you. Nobody’s going to take advantage of you.”

Liam nods shakily, takes a deep, unsteady breath.

“I made your tea,” Hayden’s voice says timidly; she’s exiting the kitchen. “Put some honey in it too.”

Liam takes it from her; his hands are shaking. “Thanks, Hayds,” he mumbles, and his voice cracks a little. Hayden - because she must be some sort of angel, Brett thinks - totally ignores the sound and smiles at him.

There’s a long silence; Brett’s not sure what to say, and Hayden clearly doesn’t either; Mason’s still in the kitchen.

“Are we still going to play Uno?” Liam asks, surprising them all by being the one to break the silence.

“If - if you want to,” Hayden says. “We haven’t played in a while. Might be fun.”

Liam settles down at the coffee table, his legs folded neatly underneath him. Hayden looks at him, then at Brett; her eyes say more than her mouth ever could. She knows something is going on. She knows what she saw wasn’t just a platonic hug.

She raises her eyebrows at him and jerks her head; she clearly expects Brett to join Liam on the floor, and so he does. Once he’s down there, Liam gives a light, weak shiver and leans against his arm gently.

“Chinese food,” Mason announces, entering with a huge platter on one hand and four plates on the other. “Even got you chopsticks, Li.”

“Thanks,” Liam murmurs, taking them before they can roll off the plate they’re balanced on. His hands are still shaking, and the chopsticks click together a little; he puts them down.

“I don’t even know why they put that kind of shit on TV,” Hayden says suddenly, sounding upset. “It’s horrible stuff. And it could really trigger people!”

 _Like it just did_ , Brett thinks sadly.

“I’m glad they do it,” Liam says tiredly, and everyone looks at him; even Brett isn’t sure where that came from. “If they put it on TV and more people see it, maybe people will start realising it’s actually a fucking problem.”

Nobody says anything; the air is dead. Nobody knows what to say, Brett realises. This whole time, he was working under the assumption that Hayden and Mason would know what to do with an emotionally unstable Liam. But they don’t.

Brett grabs the chopsticks, leans forward, and picks up a dumpling, cleaves it in half on Liam’s plate, and raises the smaller half to his mouth. Liam leans forward and takes it - chews, then starts to smile as he looks up at Brett.

“What?” Brett asks.

Liam swallows. “You did it,” he says.

“Did what?”

“The chopsticks.” Liam’s still smiling. “You used them properly.”

Brett looks at them. “I guess I did, huh?” he asks.

“Told you you’d get it,” Liam replies. His eyes are still red, and he still looks like maybe he’ll fly apart into different pieces at any moment - but he’s smiling, and he’s with them, and he’s talking. Brett’s grateful for that at least.

They play Uno for a while. Liam doesn’t act strangely - he’s a little subdued, maybe, but he contributes to the conversation and still thrashes them all, and him acting normally kind of sets the example for the rest of them. Liam doesn’t want to be treated differently, and so they don’t. Mason and Hayden say nothing about the way Liam presses into his side, gently, like he’s too tired to hold himself up.

When they’ve played five rounds - and Liam’s won four, damn him - Mason stands up to take the plates away, and Hayden cleans up their mugs, glasses, and the cards. Liam closes his eyes and burrows closer to Brett.

Brett looks towards the kitchen; the other two are occupied. He strokes Liam’s spine gently, kneads his side, and presses a kiss into his hair. Liam sighs.

“You should have a shower,” Brett says softly. “Might help you feel a bit better.”

Liam nods a bit, starts to stand up. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re right. Okay.”

He gives Brett a quick, soft kiss before he leaves; Brett watches him go, sees the bathroom door shut, and turns to the living room, meaning to straighten it out a little.

Hayden enters then, comes over, and starts to help him out. She’s quiet, but Brett’s not stupid; he knows what’s coming.

“So,” she starts hesitantly. “You and Liam…?”

“Not in the way you think, probably,” Brett says softly. “But yeah.”

She nods. “Please don’t hurt him,” she whispers back, desperately, like Liam might somehow hear her over the whirr of the bathroom fan and the pounding of the water. “He really trusts you, and this - this is the first breakthrough in months, almost a year, and - and he won’t be able to handle it if you-”

“I’m here to stay,” Brett says. “Not just because I’m homeless, either. I care about him. I’m being careful with him. I promise.”

She nods, takes a deep breath. “He doesn’t - can’t let Mason and I take care of him,” she says. “But it seems like he can let you do it. So we - we’re kind of relying on you here. To take care of him? I know it’s a lot of pressure, but-”

“I promise,” Brett repeats. “You don’t mind? That it’s me that is?”

“God, no,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “We’re just happy he’s letting anyone in. Maybe eventually it’ll be us, but for now, it’s you.”

Brett nods. “I won’t let him down,” he says, and he means it - he won’t. Not if he can help it.

~*~

He heads back to Liam’s bedroom after helping Hayden straighten out the living room; Liam’s still in the shower.

Brett sighs, easing back into Liam’s pillows gently. He’s never seen Liam quite like that before - jumpy, that is. Visibly shell-shocked. He realises, now, that he hasn’t seen evidence of Liam’s hurts like that before, only symptoms - the drinking, and shutting people out, and mood swings. They’re all to keep people away from him so people don’t want to look closer.

 _He needs help_ , Brett realises, rubbing his face in irritation. _He needs someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. Only he can’t afford it. He’d like to get help, but he can’t afford it._

He takes a deep breath; he doesn’t want to start thinking about how fucked up that is, that the people who most need help are the ones who are punished by their inability to access it; that psychological trauma makes everything hard enough, let alone advancing through a career enough to earn the money for a psychiatrist.

Liam had the flu a few weeks ago, and even though he definitely would have benefitted from going to a doctor, he refused - because it was too expensive. Instead, he’d spent the majority of the week curled up in bed, or going to shifts at work when he could, even when he could barely stand. And from what Brett’s seen, all three of them are like that; they would rather suffer longer than be financially unstable.

 _Maybe I can get a job_ , Brett thinks. _If I can manage to snag a job - even just a part-time one - I could start saving up to send him to someone. If he wanted that._

Liam’s indicated in the past that he does; that he’d be perfectly willing to go to a psychiatrist or psychologist given the resources. So maybe-

The bedroom door opens; Liam steps in quietly, shuts it behind him. He looks much better - his face and eyes have settled back into a regular expression, one that doesn’t look so much like he’s watched someone get shot in front of him. Even the redness is gone, even though they’re still a little puffy, and he’s sniffling a bit.

Brett smiles awkwardly when Liam looks up at him, almost nervously, measuring Brett’s reaction to his appearance; he relaxes when he sees Brett smile. “Hi,” he mumbles.

“Hey,” Brett says, standing up - he’s not sure why, but it feels appropriate. “Feeling better?”

Liam nods, smiling a little. “Mm. Shower helped.”

Brett nods along with him. Liam’s still towelling his hair off, and he’s wearing sweats, but he forgot to take a shirt into the shower - his torso is totally bare. And Brett, well, Brett can’t stop looking - at the slight sway of Liam’s back, the rounded caps of his shoulders, the thick, solid lines of his biceps and hands, sweeping gracefully into his hands.

Brett swallows. He’s seen how deft Liam’s fingers are, how he can play a guitar like he was born to do it, as an extension of his body. Liam’s hands are callused and scarred - from weights at the apartment gym, from playing the tough metal strings on his guitar, from burning himself on the coffee machine at work.

“Brett?” Liam asks softly, turning to face him.

“Yeah?” He tears his gaze away.

There’s a pause. Then, “You can look if you want.”

Brett shakes his head. “You just…” he says, and trails off helplessly. “I shouldn’t. Not right now. Not after-”

“When you look at me, I feel real,” Liam admits quietly. “Like I actually exist.”

Brett’s floored by the admission, and he still sort of wants to protest - but Liam’s turned his entire body towards Brett, and he’s standing straight, with his shoulders back, and there’s nothing about his body language to suggest he’s afraid, reluctant, or otherwise nervous about Brett looking at him. And so Brett looks; really looks, wants Liam to keep feeling that - that he’s real.

Brett swallows thickly. It’s not that he hasn’t seen Liam shirtless before; he has, on a few different occasions. Liam has a habit of getting into the shower and not taking fresh clothes in with him, then walking around in a towel. The thing is…

“What’s wrong?” Liam asks softly.

“Nothing.”

The thing is, he’s never been really allowed to look - not more than a cursory glance, anyway. And Liam’s body is so different to a girl’s, which Brett knew, of course, but in theory - not really in practice. He’s flat where girls aren’t and straight up and down where Brett is used curves. He might be short - shorter than a lot of the girls Brett’s been with, even - but he’s much broader, more solid, visibly stronger.

Liam smiles suddenly, tentatively. “You know… taking my shirt off has never rendered someone speechless before,” he says. “Is this a good thing, or are you suddenly realising you aren’t interested?” He says it with humour, as a joke, but Brett hears the rise of his voice at the end of the sentence - an inflection of uncertainty.

“No,“ he murmurs. “No, I’m definitely interested. It’s just…” He reaches out, hesitantly, puts his hands on Liam’s biceps and strokes down slightly, to his elbows. A wave of goosebumps ripples up Liam’s torso, and Brett tries not to pay too much attention to the way his nipples harden.

“I get it,” Liam says. “Right up until about four weeks before we started…” Here, he gestures between them awkwardly, “this, whatever this is, I was still sleeping with girls. They’re different.”

“How’d you sleep with girls?” Brett asks curiously.

Liam smiles, kind of despondently. “I wasn’t having sex because I wanted sex, you know what I mean? I was just trying to… I don’t know. Feel close to people? So you know, it didn’t really matter.”

Brett nods; he doesn’t quite understand, but then, he probably wouldn’t be able to even if he was gay and not bi. “What stopped you?”

Liam shrugs under his hands. “I got close to you. And I didn’t… I really like you.” He goes red saying it, looks down. “It felt wrong to fuck other people when I knew I liked you. I think… before that, I was pretty much exclusively having sex with guys, but I was kind of saying, I’m not gay, it’s just easier to get laid with a guy than a girl, you know? As soon as I realised how I felt about you…”

 _It scared him_ , Brett realises. “You didn’t want to be gay?”

“Didn’t mind that part as much as I minded ending up with a crush on you,” Liam says, “what with being convinced telling you would push you away.”

Brett nods. “Well,” he says with a smile. “I’m glad you did.”

“I didn’t really do anything,” Liam mumbles shyly.

Brett’s smile widens; shy Liam is incredibly cute. “Well, you didn’t freak out when I kissed you. You’ve got that going for you.”

“I kissed you,” Liam says indignantly.

“Okay.” Brett grins. “Let me take this one, then.“

Liam’s smiling as Brett cradles his neck - his wonderfully bare, warm, damp neck - and bends down to kiss him. Liam meets him halfway, his mouth already partially open, his eyes closed. The air between them trembles with electricity. Brett’s gone, hooked, wasted like a junkie on a long-awaited high.

Liam’s right hand grips his waist, but the other is suddenly around Brett’s shoulders - and Liam has to stand on his toes to do it, but their bellies and chests brush together and Liam moans into his mouth, pressing closer needily, his nails biting against the delicate flesh of Brett’s hip.

"Liam,” Brett mumbles. “Liam, what-”

“Bed,” Liam rasps back, and then he’s pushing Brett backwards and climbing on top of him. “Say stop whenever you want.”

With that, he’s back in Brett’s space, his hand in Brett’s hair and the other on the side of his head - he’s straddling Brett’s hips easily, like a pro, and that’s sort of when it clues for Brett that Liam’s had a few more than “just a couple” of sexual partners.

 _Does he bottom or top?_ Brett wonders suddenly. _Is he going to ask for that now? Is that where this is-_

“Stop thinking about it,” Liam groans. “You’re gonna give us both a migraine.”

“Do you top or bottom?” Brett blurts.

Liam leans back and huffs; his hair is falling into his face. “Both. Now that we’ve got that sorted, can we get this sorted?” He gestures between them.

“Both,” Brett says blankly.

“You want a breakdown? I mean I guess I enjoy getting fucked more if that’s what you’re asking.” Liam leans down and nibbles on his lower lip. “Relax,” he murmurs. “We won’t do anything you don’t wanna do.”

Brett puts his hands on Liam’s waist - Liam’s got a slender waist, hard with muscles, and Brett takes a moment to relish in it - before flipping them over. Liam’s back hits the bed with a thump; he adjusts with a smirk and a roll of his hips.

“That’s just not fucking fair,” Brett breathes.

“What isn’t?”

“This,” Brett splutters. “You. You’re ridiculously hot.”

“Aw, thanks.” Liam’s still got that cocky little smirk on his face; it’s simultaneously infuriating and exhilarating, and Brett wants to kiss it away - get Liam so riled up he can’t keep it in place. “You sure this is where you want me?” Liam asks innocently.

“Where else would I want you?”

“I can think of better places I could be.” Liam’s hand reaches down, and Brett gasps when Liam grips him through his jeans. “Like… here, maybe? Maybe even with my mouth?”

“With - with your-” Brett’s mind feels like maybe some of the circuitry is faulty; he can’t get the words out, and the only thing he’s thinking about is Liam’s lips and mouth around him, and how long it’s been since he hooked up with anyone. “Do you want-”

“Yes,” Liam groans, sitting up so quickly Brett’s forced to back off. “Do you want me to?”

“Yeah,” Brett whispers. “I haven’t ever-”

“You’ve never been with a guy, right?”

“Right,” Brett says, and then the air’s leaving his lungs in a whoosh as Liam pushes him over onto his back; he’s kneeling between Brett’s legs suddenly, bare-chested, his hair still wet from his shower, and his eyes gleaming with mischief.

“Well,” he says, “I’m gonna make sure you never fucking forget it.”

 _Fuck_ , Brett thinks, swallowing as Liam unbuckles his belt and starts in on his zipper. _What the hell have I gotten myself into?_

“Liam,” he says.

Liam looks up. “Mm?”

“I just…” Brett swallows; if his next sentence blows his chance at getting head today, so be it. “Are you doing this because you want to? Or because you feel like you have to?”

Liam smiles. “I want to,” he says. “I like being close to you. Don’t worry, I’m not self-destructing or anything. Thanks for checking, though.”

He sounds sincere, and Brett lets him continue what he was doing - which is snaking his way down Brett’s torso, pressing kisses into every sensitive spot, crowding between his legs. His shoulders are hot between Brett’s thighs, his hair tickling where the slightly longer fringe drags across his skin.

“Liam,” Brett whispers.

“Not self-destructing,” Liam mumbles, somewhere around his pelvis.

“No, I know, I - ah,” Brett gasps as Liam reaches up and tweaks his left nipple. “Um-”

Liam smiles against his skin. “Got you all worked up, huh? Relax. Let me take care of you.” With that, he’s tugging Brett’s jeans and boxer briefs down; Brett kicks them off.

Liam settles back between his legs, on his knees, towering over Brett. He smiles as he sits back. “Damn,” he says. “That’s nice.”

Brett blushes and tries to hide his face, but Liam laughs and pins his hands. “Don’t be shy. I like it. You’re really fucking hot.” Then he’s going down again - gives Brett a few cursory strokes before taking the head in his mouth, tantalisingly slowly.

Brett shivers, lets out a high-pitched whine. “Liam,” he breathes.

Liam looks up at him; he’s moving further down, and he’s using one hand to grip the back of Brett’s right thigh - his fingers dig in, hard, and Brett groans at the sensation. Liam’s apparently not afraid of playing rough. Brett loves it.

Liam ducks his head, properly, and Brett fists his hands into Liam’s hair when his dick touches the back of Liam’s throat; Liam’s really fucking good at this, and Brett hasn’t gotten any action in months, and he’s probably going to blow apart at the seams in under a few minutes.

Liam presses the flat of his tongue gently to the underside of his dick, and Brett shivers - lets out a small noise, tugs Liam’s hair, admiring how good it looks sifting between his hands. Liam lets out a noise too, and Brett sees his skin ripple with goosebumps.

“Do you enjoy this?” he breathes.

Liam gives a tiny nod, focusing all his attention on Brett. He’s moving a little faster now, gripping Brett at the base of his dick, making sure everything’s covered all the time. Brett wriggles a little; his spine is tingling, and there’s heat curled low and heavy in his belly.

“Liam,” he groans, tugging Liam’s hair again. “Liam, I-” He stops; Liam’s really focussing on the head, now, and Brett can barely breathe, the sensation is so intense. “Liam,” he pants, on a single gust of breath. “Liam-”

Liam looks up at him, pushes forward - suddenly, the backs of Brett’s thighs are against Liam’s shoulders, and the angle has changed; Liam’s going tantalisingly slowly now.

“Fuck,” Brett moans. “You tease.”

The corners of Liam’s eyes crinkle in what’s probably an approximation of a smile. There’s a pause - Liam’s hand moves, presses into a spot right near his entrance that makes Brett almost fucking yelp, and-

Liam speeds up, presses his thumb down, and Brett’s gone; he comes in Liam’s mouth without getting the chance to warn him, writhing on the bed. Liam grabs his hips and pins him firmly in place, doesn’t gag at all; he sucks Brett off, gently, until he’s finished.

Brett’s started going soft by the time Liam sits up, cracks his neck, and reaches for the bottle of water on his bedside table; Brett sees his throat move.

“Did you just swallow?” Brett breathes.

Liam smiles and nods, taking a few swallows of water from the bottle.

“Fuck,” Brett moans, dropping his head back against the pillow; Liam splutters a little, and some water dribbles out of his mouth and onto Brett’s stomach. “Liam, that’s disgusting.”

Liam swallows his mouthful of water and laughs. “Sorry,” he says, but he’s smiling and looks completely unrepentant. He does, however, clean Brett’s belly up. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Brett says, watching as Liam caps the water bottle, leans over him to put it back, and then lies down on his side next to Brett. For a moment, Liam looks back at him - then he flops down properly, with a sigh, and closes his eyes. He seems content - happy.

Brett smiles, reaching out to stroke Liam’s chest and shoulders. As he does, he notices a series of blemishes across Liam’s shoulder - faint, straight lines, right over his collarbone.

“What’s this?”

Liam opens his eyes; Brett’s tracing the series of marks on his shoulder. “Oh, that,” he mumbles. “Surgery scars.”

“Surgery? What for?”

Liam smiles a little. “If I tell you it’ll kill the mood.”

“I don’t care.”

Liam shrugs, faux-casual. “Dad threw me around a lot,” he says. “When I was thirteen he broke my collarbone. It was bad enough to need surgery.” He takes Brett’s hand and shifts it up, closer to his neck. “Feel that bump?”

Brett presses, grimacing when he feels it - a hard knob under Liam’s skin that isn’t visible to the naked eye. “Yeah?”

“It’s a metal plate,” Liam explains. “It’s screwed into the bone to stop it from moving. They thought they might be able to take it out, but… well, they can’t. It got too badly broken. Three places, and the bone hadn’t finished growing - so if they’d taken it out, the bone wouldn’t have grown properly. And, yeah. It’s still there.”

Brett swallows. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” Liam says. “Hasn’t since it healed properly. Sometimes I can feel it if I’m carrying my bag and it’s got too much stuff in it.”

“But how do you move?” Brett asks. “If it’s a plate-”

“It’s kind of…” Liam rolls a little to free both hands. “Like it’s a bunch of tiny interlocking plates. Almost like Lego? And they all move. So that’s how.”

Brett nods, swallows, strokes Liam’s collarbone gently. He can’t imagine a thirteen year old Liam being so badly abused his collarbone was not only broken, but required surgery and a metal plate to even be functional again. And that nobody took him away from his parents, either.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

Liam’s face softens. “I didn’t tell you to make you sad,” he murmurs back. “But thanks. And hey, if it helps… you’re sort of with a cyborg. And that’s pretty cool, right?”

Brett laughs - damn Liam and knowing exactly what to say - and Liam smiles widely. “That’s better,” he decides. “Fuck, I hate making you sad. I hate that telling you about my life makes you sad.”

Brett shakes his head, unsure of what to say; Liam puts his chin on Brett’s chest and blinks at him slowly.

“I mean,” he says, “I kind of like telling you. I haven’t really told anyone much before. It’s nice. And you don’t run away from me either. Just… I wish I wasn’t selfish, because then it wouldn’t fucking depress you.”

Brett shakes his head. “You aren’t selfish,” he says. “It’s not selfish to want to confide in people, Li.”

“It is when you know they’re going to be hurt for it and you do it anyway,” Liam mumbles guiltily.

“Hey,” Brett says. “Look at me.”

Liam looks up at him, and Brett smiles.

“Some people are worth being hurt for,” he says softly. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

Liam smiles; it looks a little wobbly on his face. “No.”

“Well. They just did. And you’re at the top of my list.”

Liam leans on him, tucks his face close. “You know,” he murmurs, “I can’t promise I’m gonna be perfect… like, at all… but I can promise I’ll try and be good. For you, I mean. To you.”

“You already are, Liam.”

Liam looks kind of scared, but he is still smiling a little. “You haven’t seen me at my worst yet. Please don’t make any promises to me until you have. You might not wanna stick around… and I wouldn’t blame you for it.”

Brett tilts his head. “Well,” he says. “I guess we’ll find out, right?”

~*~

He finds out about half a week later.

Brett remembers reading, once, that progress isn’t a straight line; that it’s actually more comparable to what a rocket’s trajectory might look like if the rocket and the rocket controller were both drunk.

Still. Liam’s progress has been slowly climbing uphill, steadily, for the last few weeks - and now it’s stalled. It’s totally stopped. In fact, it might be going backwards, and Brett’s frustrated; he can’t see any reason it might have, and that’s grinding his nerves down.

Liam’s picked up on that, of course, and he’s just as sour - they’re in the kitchen together, and Brett’s trying to keep his cool, but Liam seems to want to push his buttons today - well, push might not be the word. Jab, consistently, with a fork is probably a more accurate description of what Liam’s currently doing.

Brett’s not dumb. He knows Liam’s testing his limits, seeing how far he can push before Brett snaps, seeing how far he can take it before Brett ditches him. He knows what’s happening, he just doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know what’s inspired this particular mood, or why he’s unable to work Liam out of it.

This doesn’t look like progress. Liam’s trajectory might be suddenly fucked, but this, to Brett, doesn’t at all look like or resemble progress. He doesn’t want to prove Liam right and snap at him, or lose his temper; that won’t make things any better for either of them.

“Liam,” he says softly, and he’s surprised when Liam’s jaw immediately sets, like he’s already suspicious of what Brett has to say. “What’s going on, huh?”

“Nothing,” Liam mutters. “Sorry.”

He doesn’t sound sorry, not that an apology is particularly what Brett’s looking for anyway. “Come on,” he says. “Look, I can tell something’s bugging you. So why don’t you just-”

“Nothing!” Liam snaps, and Brett reels a little. “Nothing’s wrong! I’m having a bad day and I’m in a really fucking shitty mood!”

Liam hasn’t even gone out today; it’s like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed and has been totally unable to shake it since. “We haven’t gone anywhere,” Brett says helplessly, trying to understand. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t,” Liam mumbles, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “I don’t mean anything. Drop it.”

Brett’s not very good at being told what to do, though. Especially not when he’s being snapped at. “I’m not going to,” he says, and Liam levels him with a glare that has so much genuine heat behind it, Brett wants to flinch. “I can’t understand you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I just _did!_ ” Liam snaps. “You rebutted it!”

 _Shit_ , Brett realises. _I kind of did._

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to. Do you wanna - do you wanna try again?”

There’s a long, tense pause. Liam doesn’t look like he’s going to give, even an inch - so Brett’s surprised when he suddenly says, “I have bad days. I haven’t had one in a while, so you haven’t seen it. Today’s a bad day.”

 _A bad day?_ Brett wonders, trying to work out what that might entail.

Liam shakes his head suddenly, and Brett realises he’s taken too long to respond. “Forget it,” he mutters.

“Why are you being like this?” Brett demands - his patience gives way in that moment and, too late, he realises he’s given Liam what Liam was looking for - conflict. “I’m not your enemy, Liam, I’m trying to help you.”

Liam doesn’t say anything; his jaw is clenched, and he’s gone rigidly still where he’s standing.

Brett steps forward. “I’m not going to fight you,” he says lowly. “I’m not going to prove you right or give you any reason to think that I’m going to hurt you, so you may as well cut the shit and-”

He almost sees Liam’s tenuous control snap; he turns around, faces Brett, steps right up to him like they’re about to get into a fistfight. He looks livid.

“You said you understood!” Liam hurls the words at him like an accusation; he wants Brett to feel them when they hit. “You said you know why I am the way I am! You said you’d work with it!”

“I can’t work with nothing!” Brett exclaims. “Which is what you’ve given me! You haven’t let me in at all!”

“I haven’t let you in?” Liam sounds genuinely confused. “I’ve let you in more than I’ve ever let anyone in my life in. Brett, I-” He steps forward, looking desperate. “I’ve given you all I can give you right now. I’m sorry. I’m trying. Don’t give up on me.”

Brett swallows. “I’m not gonna give up on you, Li,” he murmurs. “You just… you have to communicate with me, okay? I’m never going to know what I’ve done wrong unless you tell me.”

Liam blinks at him. “I don’t know how,” he says helplessly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how.”

“Liam,” Brett starts, but Liam ducks his head and moves past him, so quickly Brett doesn’t have time to reach out and catch him, to draw him back.

Liam’s bedroom door closes, along with Brett’s throat. He’s said or done something terrible, maybe both, and there’s no way to fix it. He’s done exactly what he said he wouldn’t - pushed Liam beyond what he could be reasonably pushed, and now Liam’s hiding from him.

He gives Liam an hour or so to calm down - to at least begin to realise that Brett’s not mad at him, not even in the slightest. At least, not anymore. And maybe that was his first mistake - getting irritated with Liam’s reluctance to give up information. Somewhere along the way, he’s come to expect Liam will share with him instead of hoping for it, and that seems to have translated over into a hesitance, on Liam’s part, to tell him things.

After an hour, Brett approaches Liam’s bedroom door and knocks softly.

“Um, yeah?” Liam sounds nervous.

Brett cracks the door open. Liam peers up at him; he’s sitting on the bed, a notepad balanced on his thighs. He’s wearing his glasses, and he looks much, much calmer than he did before.

“Hey,” Brett murmurs. “Thought you might be hungry.” He tosses Liam a banana. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

Brett approaches hesitantly; Liam watches him, not afraid, but curious. Almost assessing. Brett sits on the bed with him, and Liam scoots over to give him more room.

“I’m sorry,” Brett says. “I shouldn’t expect you to spill your guts just because we’re…”

He stops. There’s the problem, he realises - he’s been treating Liam like a boyfriend, while simultaneously saying that for now, they’re only something a little more than friends. Liam clearly isn’t ready for the next step - not ready to let Brett closer. Brett’s attempts at showing Liam he can trust him are what’s ended up causing Liam to shut him out.

“I pushed you too hard,” he realises aloud.

“Yes,” Liam breathes exhaustedly.

“I’m sorry, Liam. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know how.” Liam seems flustered. “You were just - you were being so nice to me, and so gentle, and I didn’t - I was scared if I told you I was kind of freaking out, you’d just leave altogether. Brett, people don’t stay with me.”

“Hayden and Mason-”

“Are different. They’ve known me since we were kids. That’s different, you know? People like you - nice people, good people, you don’t stay.”

“Why do you think that?” Brett murmurs.

“I don’t know.” Liam looks down at his writing pad, swallows. “I suppose if I knew, I could probably stop it happening. I know it’s something to do with me. I freak out when people get too close. I - I’m not dumb, I know I self-sabotage, you know?” He gestures between them weakly. “That’s what I was doing before. I know I’m doing it, I just can’t - when I have bad days, like this, I can’t control myself. It’s really shitty of me, I know. I want help for it but-”

“But you can’t afford therapy,” Brett says softly. What an awful situation to be in - to recognise that he needs help, and to not have access to it.

“No.” Liam looks down again. “I’m… I’m sorry that for whatever reason you thought… that I was okay, or that… I could just be a nice normal boyfriend and not fucked up. I’m sorry I gave you that impression.”

“That’s not why I like you,” Brett whispers, then takes Liam’s pad and pen out of his hands and sits in front of him. “I don’t like you because I saw you and thought, wow, what a perfectly normal guy, he seems like a domestic enough person I could potentially settle down with.” This manages to elicit a smile from Liam, so Brett ploughs ahead. “I was interested in you because - well, I couldn’t ignore this.” He tugs the strip of purple in Liam’s hair lightly. “But also because you were just interesting, you know? Within five minutes of talking, we covered pandas, Darth Vader, and how to break the law.”

“That’s because I have no social skills, not because I’m interesting-”

“No, you told me because you have no social skills,” Brett says with a small smile. “You knew them in the first place because you’re interesting. And hey, you vouched for me. You were the one who straight up told the others that you weren’t gonna ditch me at the shelter or anywhere else in the middle of winter. You stuck out your neck for me even when you weren’t sure if it’d backfire or not. You might be damaged, Liam, but you are good.”

Liam’s smile wobbles uncertainly on his face. “I really wanna be a functional human being for you,” he says, his voice breaking. “I’m just not sure when I’ll get there. If ever.”

Brett leans forward, his hand on Liam’s shoulder, presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes. Liam’s breath trembles a mere few inches away from his mouth, the only noise in an otherwise silent room.

“You don’t have to be functional,” he says. “Especially not for me, okay? If you wanna be functional, you should work towards it for yourself. You deserve it just as much as anyone else does.” When he sees Liam’s eyes start to grow wet and red, he continues quickly. “Just be you. I’ll work something out. And… I mean it this time.”

Liam swallows, puts a hand on Brett’s arm, near his neck. “Don’t give up on me, okay?” he whispers. “I'm sorry for before. I’m trying. I’m really trying.”

“I’m not giving up on you.” Brett’s throat works with emotion. “Don’t give up on me either.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

They might only barely be physically intimate, and they might not be in exactly the best of places mentally, but they both know what it feels like to be given up on, and Brett thinks maybe that’ll be able to carry them through for now. It’s not a guarantee, it’s definitely not fool proof, and at the end of the day, it might not even be wise.

But it is comforting, and Brett feels like they’ve both seen the worst of one another tonight, and they’ve both made a decision to tough it out - to stay. Despite it all, even though Liam could have run - even though in the past, from what it sounds like, he’s always run before, rather than be saddled with extra hurts and wounds.

Liam moves, tucking his face against Brett’s neck. “I can’t believe you found me,” he murmurs.

 _Someone was always gonna, Li_ , Brett thinks, squeezing Liam a little tighter. _Someone was always going to find you and realise you were worth loving._

“Brett?” Liam asks.

“Yeah?”

“If… if we hadn’t brought you back here, would you still have…?”

 _Would I still have been interested_. Brett finishes the thought off in his mind and answers without questioning why Liam needs to know; Liam has deep, deep trust issues and if reassurance that he’s worth loving and is interesting and does contribute to Brett’s overall life satisfaction, then that’s what Brett will tell him.

“I was interested in you the moment I saw you, Li,” Brett murmurs, leaning back to look at Liam. “Just… I mean, you’re cute as fuck, which helps-” Liam smiles a little here - “But also just… the way you talked, and the way you weren’t worried about talking to me. That was cool. Most people are so… I dunno. Closed off? Cagey? And you weren’t like that.”

“I’m the opposite of other people,” Liam mumbles. “Most people are closed off when they meet someone and open up slowly… I’m pretty friendly to people I don’t know, and then when people get close, I shut them out.”

“There’s another thing I like about you,” Brett says with a smile. “You’re really self-reflective.”

“And cute,” Liam says.

Brett grins widely. “And cute. You didn’t hear me wrong.”

“I know, I’m just fishing for compliments now.”

Brett laughs, and Liam smiles. Liam seems to like making him laugh. It’s a nice feeling, to know that someone’s going out of their way just to see him happy.

Liam. Brett’s eyes drift over him; this tiny, compact little spitfire with trust issues so deep they make the Grand Canyon look shallow in comparison, with maybe one or two people in the entire world on his side - three, Brett reminds himself, three now - who, despite everything, has a heart of gold. A little battered maybe, but beating just the same.

 _I’m going to be good for you_ , Brett promises Liam silently, pulling Liam in to give him a soft, gentle kiss. _I’m going to be good._

~*~

“You should do something for yourself.”

Brett looks over at Liam; he’s got a notepad out on his knees, his glasses on, and he’s looking expectantly at Brett.

They’re in bed. It’s cold out, but Liam likes the smell of the night air and so the window is cracked open, letting the crisp breeze into his room. The world’s silent; there’s snow drifting down tiredly, maybe one of the last they’ll see for the season.

When it’s like this, Brett can pretend it’s just them. That they’re the only two people in existence, the only two people that have ever or will ever exist; that Liam’s parents never abused him, that Liam’s not hurt or damaged. That Brett’s parents never kicked him out of home. Although, he owes them for that, he thinks. Because he has Liam now, and having Liam feels like someone’s given him a tiny little slice of the universe and said, _here. It’s yours. Keep it safe_. Except it’s not some arbitrary and unimportant cluster of star dust, although he read once that’s what they’re all made of - it’s Liam’s soul, his heart, his mind. Everything that Brett’s seen, everything he never will, everything he won’t have time to.

I won’t have time to. He feels displaced just thinking about it; even if they both live to a hundred, there’s no guarantee that that’s how long they’ll know each other, no guarantee they’ll ever even fall in love and decide it’s worth fighting for. Even then, how will Brett even begin to scratch the surface of Liam’s mind, let alone dive in deep? Would Liam even let him? Will he even be able to?

“Brett?” Liam asks.

He shakes himself. “Sorry.”

“You were staring at me.” Liam smiles faintly. “You do that a lot.”

Brett returns his smile; it looks tired, like Liam’s struggling to keep it there. Liam has good days and bad days - on his good days, he’s a little less guarded, talks with enthusiasm about whatever he’s absorbed in learning at the time - yesterday it was the consistent monitoring and collection of personal data by phone companies.

But on the bad days - after the first one, which was spent pushing Brett away because he thought it was somehow safer than letting him in - he’s like this. Withdrawn, quiet - and, when it’s just the two of them, once Mason and Hayden have either gone to bed or left the apartment, vulnerable. The tough, scaly veneer molts off, leaving him soft, fragile, and exposed. These are the days Liam visibly struggles; he hardly eats, he’s lethargic, he’s much more prone to snapping over seemingly stupid things. He doesn’t talk about his interests, and when he does, he follows it up with a, “I don’t know, I’m dumb”, that sounds a little too sincere for Brett’s liking.

Today is a bad day. Liam went to class in the morning, but when he came home, he quickly settled into bed and didn’t attempt to do anything more than watch TV. Brett feels awful on these days, wanting to help, knowing there isn’t much he can do short of keeping Liam company and making sure he knows he’s safe.

“I like your eyes,” he says simply.

Liam’s smile widens, almost imperceptibly. “They’re nothing special.”

“They are to me. Anyway.” He turns to face Liam properly. “What do you mean, I should do something for myself?”

Liam shrugs. “You mentioned a while ago that coming out to your parents is the only thing you’ve ever done for yourself,” he says quietly. “That other than that you’d just done what they told you to. You should do something for yourself. Even it’s it not… you know, something they can see. You’ll know you did it.”

Brett nods; it’s a good idea. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah. What brought that on?”

Liam shrugs self-consciously. He’s wearing a baggy white crewneck and boxers and Brett thinks he looks great. “Just… it’s stupid, never-”

“I bet it isn’t,” Brett counters.

Liam turns his laptop towards Brett, looking shy. “I uh, when I - when I’m having a rough day, I try to just - read lots? And make notes on it and stuff. It’s really stupid.”

“It’s not really stupid,” Brett says, surprised. “It’s smart. Where’d you get that idea?”

“I dunno. I just used to do it to distract myself. It doesn’t work as well as sleeping around or getting drunk, but… it’s probably healthier.”

“Way healthier,” Brett agrees, watching as Liam readjusts. He feels weird thinking that Liam’s fucked seemingly a fair few people in this bed. “Have… you hooked up recently?”

Liam smiles faintly. “No. The last time I did was just before I got drunk on the fire escape. I didn’t… After that talk we had? Things started feeling a little less shitty for me. And the whole reason I was sleeping around in the first place was just to try and feel something that wasn’t anger or pain. After that, I didn’t need to.”

“Why not?” Brett asks.

Liam rubs his face; it’s a clear sign of irritation, but it’s not directed at Brett. “You know how much pressure there is to be okay?” Liam asks. “To just… move on from it? Get over it? How many people have said, in one way or another, that he’s still my dad, so I should forgive him?”

Brett listens. He doesn’t know about most of what Liam’s trying to get across; he only started feeling not-okay when he started to realise he wasn’t straight. Even then, the feeling was somewhat tempered by the idea that he could just date girls for the rest of his life.

“Like… I don’t know.” Liam rubs his face again, slides his legs under the covers. “Every time I’ve mentioned it, it’d be _oh, well, at least you’re out of there now_ or _oh, that sucks. I understand._ ”

“You’ve told people?” Brett asks softly.

Liam shakes his head a little. “I guess. Not anyone who mattered, at least not to me. None of my friends at college know. I’ve told some hookups when they’ve asked why I have marks on my shoulder. Like I said… nobody who mattered. Not to me.” He looks at Brett. “You aren’t gonna tell me you get it?”

“No. I don’t. And it won’t make you feel better if I say it.” Brett shuffles a little closer to Liam, until they’re almost touching. “I never understood the way people did that,” he murmurs. “You know, that "at least you’re out of there” stuff? It’s like yeah, I know I am. Doesn’t change the fact that it happened.“

Liam smiles a little. "Maybe you do get it.”

“Listen, Liam,” Brett says quietly, “I don’t wanna offend you. But… your hookups. Did you…?”

“I used protection, if that’s what you’re about to ask,” Liam says quietly.

“All the time? Uh… pitching and catching?”

Liam nods.

“That’s good.”

“I um.” Liam winces. “I went and got a checkup. Before we did anything. Just to make sure. I mean, I didn’t think I’d have anything but…”

“You’re careful,” Brett says with a smile. “That’s great.”

“Just common sense really,” Liam mumbles, starting to blush.

“No, I mean - that you got a checkup and used protection. It means you care about yourself. About what happens to you.”

“I care about you,” Liam says. “If I had anything I didn’t want to give it to you.”

Brett’s breath catches awkwardly. He’s pretty sure that’s the first time Liam’s said he cares about him aloud, even if Brett’s known it for a long time now.

“What’d I say?” Liam asks sheepishly.

Brett takes his notepad and pen, moves his laptop. By the time he’s done all that, Liam’s lying back in bed, his head on the pillow, glasses still on.

Brett lies down gently against Liam’s body, emitting a quiet sigh as he brushes a hand through Liam’s hair. Liam tilts his head a little - towards his touch, not away from it.

“You’ve never said that before,” Brett says.

“That I care about you? I do.”

“I know. You just… haven’t said it before.” Brett leans down to kiss him; Liam returns it wholeheartedly. His bad day isn’t behind him, but he’s also not letting it affect their relationship, and that’s progress.

“So,” Liam murmurs shyly. “What’re you gonna do for yourself?”

Brett smiles. Liam’s lying underneath him trustingly, breathing quietly, looking up at him with genuine curiosity.

“I think I’ll be brave,” he murmurs, “starting with you… and say how I’ve wanted you.”

Liam’s tinting pink before he’s even finished. “Tawgs Salter,” he whispers. “Brave.”

“You know it.”

“Yeah. Have you really? Wanted me?”

“Since I laid eyes on you. And deeper than that since then.”

“I don’t get it,” Liam says blankly. “I don’t get what you could possibly see in me that would outweigh the bad shit and make you want to stay.”

“The bad shit,” Brett says softly, “is things that have been done to you or things caused by what’s been done to you. None of it is you. You aren’t a bad person. You could have let it do that to you… you could have just let yourself become bitter and angry. But you didn’t. You’re good. That’s why you pulled me off the street. That’s why you wouldn’t just ditch me in the city. Because at the end of the day, you’re a good person who’s had really shitty things happen to them, and I admire that you didn’t let it beat you.”

“What if it is me?” Liam looks scared. “I’ve been really fucked up for a really long time, Brett. I don’t remember ever being okay. What if it is me?”

“Then you’re just as deserving as love as anyone else is,” Brett says. “I know that your parents taught you differently than that, but there are people who’re gonna love you regardless of your sexuality, your I.E.D, or any of the other issues you have.”

“That’s gonna take me a long time to learn.”

“I know. But I’ll be here. And Mason, and Hayden… remember the other night? With the TV? They were over the fucking moon to be able to help you, Li. They’ve wanted to for a really long time.”

Liam nods. “I know. I didn’t know how to let them.”

“That’s okay.”

Liam’s eyes travel his face, and then his hands sweep Brett’s arms. “You know,” he says quietly, “I know we haven’t really talked about… this. I don’t even know if it’s a thing. But… I stopped sleeping around because I felt like I was cheating on you, even before we started… whatever this is. You don’t have to worry about me sleeping around.”

Brett smiles softly. “I’m not.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m glad you feel that way. I know it’s… a weird way to start out, but-”

“Well, whatever I was doing wasn’t working,” Liam says blankly. “I dunno what I was thinking. I’ll stick my dick in you and then tell you about how my dad used to beat me up? No wonder they were all one-night stands.”

Brett laughs reluctantly; he knows it’s a joke, but he still feels weird giggling about it when he knows it’s almost a defence mechanism for Liam.

Liam tilts his head. “You should kiss me again.”

Brett smiles. “Okay.”

Just as he’s about to lean closer, Liam puts a hand on his chest. “Wait,” he says. “I didn’t answer your question. About why I stopped hooking up? I don’t feel like I need to pretend to be okay around you. You’re different from everyone else. You don’t… really expect me to be. Okay, I feel like I’m not making much sense, sorry.”

“You’re making sense,” Brett says softly. “I’ll only ever want you to be okay because I’ll never want you to be hurting.”

Liam tilts his head, gives him a wobbly smile. “Today’s not a good day.”

“I know it isn’t.”

Liam pulls him until Brett’s lying on top of him, wraps his arms around Brett’s shoulders, and holds on tight. Brett lets him, happy to relax against Liam’s body and listen to him breathe.

They lie like that for a while. Brett almost drifts off, until Liam turns his head and presses a kiss against Brett’s temple awkwardly.

“Thanks,” he murmurs. “You’re kind of the best.”

“Just kind of?” Brett asks sleepily. “I need to up my game.”

“Are you tired?” Liam asks softly.

“A little. Are you?”

“Not really. But I’ll go to sleep.”

Brett yawns. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just lie here with you for a while.” He pillows his head on Liam’s shoulder. “What time is it?”

“Little past eleven.” Liam shifts a bit. “I’m going to the shelter tomorrow,” he says awkwardly. “To volunteer. Do you still want to come?”

“Yeah, of course,” Brett says. “How’re we getting there?”

“Car. Hayden and Mason are gonna share for the day.”

Brett nods. “Maybe we should get some sleep then,” he says with a smile. “Be ready for all those animals.”

Liam smiles.

They get ready for bed; Liam falls asleep almost immediately, even after saying he isn’t tired, and Brett watches him for a while - watches his hair ruffle in the breeze from the open window, watches his nose twitch a little bit.

He pulls the covers up to Liam’s neck, not keen on him getting sick, and lies down properly.

“Night, Liam,” he whispers, then turns the lamp off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there wasn't heaps of plot progression here, but I felt like they needed to get to know each other a little more before that could really happen :)


	4. Monachopsis: Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa omg i'm back
> 
> so some heavy conversations go down in this chapter so here's the **trigger warnings: descriptions of domestic violence and mentions of suicide.** there's also a fair bit of smut but it can be skipped without it affecting the plot whatsoever.
> 
> thank you guys for being patient with me ^_^ enjoy!

Monachopsis: Part 2

~*~

Liam wakes up the next morning in much better spirits than the day before.

When Brett wakes up, it’s because Liam’s crawling slowly onto the bed with him - he’s fully dressed already, smiling as he lies on his belly and dips his head to kiss Brett softly, not seeming to mind morning breath or general confusion on Brett’s part.

Brett smiles softly, rolls over, and manages to wrap Liam in a hug, even though he’s tangled in the blankets. He knows Liam could fight him off easily, especially when he’s weak with residual drowsiness - and that only makes Liam’s playful squirming all the more endearing. He doesn’t want to get away. He’s pretending to want to get away.

“Stop squirming,” Brett mumbles, nuzzling Liam’s throat with his nose. “I wanna hug you.”

Liam stifles a noise that sounds vaguely like laughter and settles next to him, letting Brett draw him in and spoon him. They’re quiet for a while; Brett listens to Liam breathe, hones in on the noise, begins to drift off to sleep again.

“Thanks,” Liam whispers.

Brett opens his eyes groggily. “For what?”

“Yesterday. It was nice to just be with someone and not have to pretend to be okay.”

“Hmm,” Brett sighs into Liam’s neck. “No problem. Anytime. I just like being with you.”

Liam rolls over a little, smiles at him - almost shyly. “I made you breakfast.”

“You made me breakfast?” Brett asks, opening his eyes.

Liam nods. “Eggs and bacon and toast,” he says.

Brett kisses him - he lurches up to do it, and maybe it’s a little forceful, but Liam doesn’t seem to care - he just sinks back onto the bed, holding Brett’s arm tightly and smiling into it.

Eventually, Liam pulls back. “It’s gonna get cold,” he says.

“Right, right, sorry.” Brett tumbles awkwardly out of bed, too bleary to really pay attention to Liam laughing at him.

“You’re like a puppy. All arms and legs.” He leads Brett out into the kitchen. “I uh, I hope it’s okay,” he says sheepishly. “I don’t really cook breakfast all that often.”

“It smells amazing,” Brett murmurs, leaning down to press a clumsy kiss into Liam’s hair. “Thank you.”

Liam sits down across from him at their coffee table - he’s got a plate too, although it has a little less on it than Brett’s. Sometimes when he has bad days his eating goes right off kilter, but it’s always back to normal within a day or two.

“Are we still going to the shelter today?” Brett asks.

“Mhm,” Liam says, nodding. “Well, I am. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to-”

“I wanna go,” Brett says, smiling. “Breakfast is great. Thanks.”

Liam smiles shyly and looks down at his own plate. “You’re welcome.”

~*~

The drive to the shelter is almost an hour, not that Brett minds.

Liam drives. Brett loves the way Liam drums his hands on the steering wheel, perfectly in time with the music filtering through the speakers, even as he isn’t paying attention to it.

“So this is a no-kill shelter, right?” Brett asks.

“Right,” Liam confirms. “They’ve expanded in the last year. Need more volunteers, but it’s hard to get people who are interested.”

Brett nods. “I’ll come out whenever you do,” he says.

Liam smiles. “Cool. They’ll like that. Usually Hayden and I go together, but she’s got work today.”

Brett’s listening, but he’s also kind of whipped just from watching Liam talk. He’s wearing a plain black hoodie, the sleeves pushed back, and a white t-shirt underneath it. Brett doesn’t really see him like this very often; Liam’s usually bundled into layers of oddly coloured or patterned clothing, nearly perpetually in his denim jacket, and never pushes his sleeves back for anything.

Brett smiles. Maybe this is another sign Liam’s relaxing around him.

“What’re you grinning at?” Liam asks.

“Just you. You’re cute.”

Liam blushes as if he’s been cued to do it. “Shut up,” he mumbles. “I’m not fucking cute. I’m nineteen years old, I’m too old-”

“To complain about people giving you a compliment,” Brett teases. “You didn’t care the other night.”

“I was sad. You take what you can get when you’re sad.”

“You confirmed it with me,” Brett smirks, watching as Liam starts to turn an even darker shade of pink. “You checked to make sure I still thought so. You were fishing. Your words, not mine.”

Liam’s started to smile. “I hate you,” he mumbles - but the smile, and the blush, and the relaxed slouch of his shoulders says otherwise. Brett smiles back, puts a hand on Liam’s thigh. He’s got strong legs - well, strong everything, really.

“I’m kind of looking forward to this.”

Liam looks surprised. “Really?” he asks. “I feel like I should warn you… we aren’t gonna be playing with kittens and puppies all day, you know? A lot of these animals are really sick, or they’re hurt. Some of them are there to die. We’re there to give them whatever comfort we can, you know?”

Brett nods. “Okay. Thanks for warning me. Do… do they die often…?”

Liam’s jaw clenches. “People ditch them when they get old,” he says shortly. “Instead of sticking with them. They don’t just come in sick; they come in broken. Especially the dogs.”

Brett shakes his head. “That’s terrible,” he murmurs. “So people don’t want them once they’re old?”

“Loads of people only value pets as long as they’re low-maintenance,” Liam says. “Once they need medications or regular care they give up. Some people can’t afford it and bring them to us - but they come to visit. Some people just dump them. Like oh, my dog’s got a kidney issue and I can’t whore him out on Instagram for likes anymore, you have him.”

“People actually do that?”

“You’d be surprised. I was.” Liam indicates, then turns right into the shelter’s driveway. “There’s a cafe next door. We can get lunch there.”

The carpark is pretty empty; Brett follows Liam in, staying behind him because he’s not really sure what the social etiquette for volunteering is. He’s never done it before.

“Hi, Liam!”

Brett looks up; the woman behind the counter at the shelter is bottle-blonde, covered in tattoos, and thin as a rail, and has one of the friendliest smiles Brett’s ever seen.

Liam smiles. “Hi, Sue,” he says. “This is Brett.”

Sue shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you, hon,” she says cheerfully. “And we’re always glad to have more volunteers. Have you done this before?”

“Um, no, I’m a newbie,” Brett says.

“No problem. We just need you to fill out some documentation and then you’ll be good to start. Liam can show you the ropes anyway.” She pats Liam’s cheek lightly, and he lets her. “He’s one of our most valued volunteers. Where’s Hayden, by the way?”

“She’s working,” Liam explains. “But I think she’s coming in next week.”

“Are you?”

“Always,” Liam says with a smile.

Brett fills out his paperwork as they chat; Liam strokes and pets every animal that comes through the lobby area, his eyes lighting up with every new four-legged creature that enters. It’s sweet to see. Brett knew Liam had a soft spot for animals, but he didn’t know how big it was.

Once the paperwork is filled out, they get started - first up is a group of kittens who need to be fed with eyedroppers. They were abandoned, and they’re too small to survive on their own; they fit into Liam’s hands like they’re nothing more than stuffed animals.

“Poor babies,” Liam murmurs, reaching into the heated box the kittens are in and scooping one up gently. “See? This is what I mean. People adopt animals and don’t take care of them - they don’t neuter them and then they ditch the kittens. I bet mama cat is out of her mind with worry.”

Brett nods, watching as Liam curls the kitten close to his chest and reaches for the eyedropper and milk solution. The kitten makes a weak yowling noise - its claws are barely big enough to prick Liam’s sweatshirt.

“Will they be okay?” Brett asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Liam says, looking up at him and smiling a little. “They should be. Long as we keep ‘em warm. And they’re kittens, so they’ll get adopted fast.” He’s sitting on the ground now, and Brett watches as he brings the eyedropper to the kitten’s mouth and begins to drip milk into it.

“There you go,” he murmurs. “Sweet baby.”

Brett thinks he might die if Liam keeps talking to baby animals the way he is. “Is this what you want to do?” he asks.

Liam adjusts; the kitten he’s holding mewls weakly. “What?” he mumbles distractedly.

“This. Is this what you wanna do?” Brett asks curiously. “You know, help animals?”

There’s a long pause; he knows Liam heard him, so he doesn’t speak again. He watches Liam feed the kitten - the poor thing is only as big as Liam’s entire hand, its tiny little claws dug into his finger.

“I kind of want to help everyone I can,” Liam says softly. “That’s what I wanna do.”

“How?”

“In whatever way I can,” Liam murmurs. “I don’t really know where to start though. There’s a lot of people who need a lot of help.”

Brett smiles softly. “I think you started with me.”

Liam smiles, almost timidly, at him. “Mhm,” he says. “Maybe. I hope so.”

“You definitely did.” Brett nods at the kitten. “She gonna be okay?”

“Think so. She’s too young to be on her own though.” Liam smiles wider. “She’s a kitten, though. Someone will adopt her really quickly.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah.” Liam lifts her to his face and kisses the kitten’s tiny nose gently. “Aw. Look at her. She’s so little.”

They spend a lot of time with the animals; first it’s the kittens, and then they move onto the dogs. Some of them are healthy and just waiting to be adopted; Brett doesn’t think he’s ever been as happy as he is when he watches Liam run around the huge property, laughing, a dozen dogs on his tail and after the tennis balls he’s holding.

Their next job is harder - the sick animals. The injured ones. The ones who have been so badly mistreated they can’t be coaxed out of their defensive, aggressive behaviour and will likely stay at the shelter for the remainder of their lives.

Still, Brett marvels at it - watching Liam, who’s usually so focussed on being fine and tough, being so incredibly gentle and loving towards the animals - all of them, too. Dogs rescued from puppy farms, old dogs in ailing health who wag their tails weakly when he approaches, cats that can barely lift their heads and hiss until they sniff him and somehow know Liam won’t hurt them. Liam feeds every animal that can eat out of the palm of his hand, no matter how snarly or mean they are. He barely seems to notice beyond making sure the cat or dog in question knows he won’t hurt them.

Brett’s kind of amazed by it really. Liam, who’s so prickly usually - softening lately, admittedly - who’s so thoroughly closed off and has every reason to be bitter with every living thing, seems to have endless love to give to these animals.

When they go to lunch, Liam talks animatedly about the animals - he remembers all their names, their ages, their histories, the same way that Brett would for any person he met and knew relatively well.

“You’re really good at this,” Brett comments.

Liam shrugs, looking kind of bashful, and looks down at his plate. “I uh… I dunno. Animals are easier to read than people. They don’t lie either.” He tilts his head. “You ever thought about that? That humans are the only species on the entire planet who go to the effort of lying, sometimes against their own best interests?”

Brett thinks for a moment. He hadn’t actually thought about it before. “Humans are the only species that can,” he says eventually.

“Mm.” Liam dips a fry into ketchup. “Maybe ignorance is bliss.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, animals don’t know they’re gonna die, right? But we do. Like, think about it. A dog is born and just goes about its life doing dog stuff. Then one day it dies. But it doesn’t know. It isn’t scared of death because it has no concept of death. Or time I guess. But people?” Liam shakes his head. “We get a hundred-ish years if we’re lucky. If we’re really lucky we get eighty or ninety of those years in good health. But we know that we won’t be around forever.”

Brett nods. “And I guess with that,” he murmurs, building off what Liam’s been saying, “comes this fear that what we’re doing with our time isn’t good enough. For us or for the bigger picture. And we know we have a finite amount of that time.” He leans back. “Do you think what we do with that time matters?”

Liam hesitates. He looks a little confused. “To…?”

“Us. Everyone else. The universe. Whatever higher deity you believe in.”

Liam munches on his fry slowly, looking at Brett with the hesitation gone from his eyes. “Yes,” he says eventually.

Brett nods. “Why?”

“Well, I guess - I’m not sure if I believe in, you know, our actions affecting everything on a cosmic scale. Or even if I believe in a higher power. But uh.” He puts his fry down. “But you know, I think that… while you’re here, you definitely affect other peoples’ lives. And if you’re bad or good enough, you affect peoples’ lives after you’re gone, too. It’s… important, to me, that if I can’t help someone, I at least shouldn’t hurt them. I mean I… hurting people won’t change what happened to me, you know? It won’t make it better. It just makes someone else feel as shitty as I did.”

Brett’s kind of wowed by that, because if he’s met anyone who has the right to be pissed off and vengeful to the world, it’s Liam; he’s been let down at every corner and every pivotal moment by people who were supposed to protect him. But he’s trying to be better. And a lot of people, Brett thinks, probably wouldn’t.

He clears his throat. “I think there’s a quote for this,” he says.

Liam’s eyes brighten a little; he likes quotes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Brett feels a little awkward saying it. “Mary Renault. _'Better the vengeance is to not share the evil’_.”

Liam nods. “I like that,” he says honestly. “It’s… I dunno. Makes me think maybe I can make something of what happened to me instead of letting it control me.”

Brett smiles. “You already are,” he says. He’s proud of Liam, too, for admitting it - that something happened to him. Because he didn’t, for a long, long time - almost as if pushing it away could make it not-real, or less real, or less hurtful to think about. Like he could ignore its impact on his life. But he’s admitting it now - to Brett, and to himself - that he was abused. That it did affect him, one way or another.

Liam looks down at his fries, a blush working its way up his neck. “As long as you think so,” he murmurs.

“I do. So does everyone else.”

“I don’t really mind what everyone else thinks,” Liam says, lifting his eyes again. “Just you. I care about what you think.” He swallows. “I care about _you_ ,” he admits, so softly Brett almost has to strain his hearing.

He reaches across the table to touch Liam’s hand, gently. “I care about you too,” he murmurs. “I don’t think you’ve ever been that upfront with me before.”

Liam shrugs a little. “I uh… I just kind of realised, you know, that you should say what you mean. Makes things easier.”

Brett nods. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Liam smiles awkwardly. They sit in silence for a bit; Liam finishes his lunch with his right hand, because Brett’s holding his left. Brett’s never seen someone look so clumsy while eating fries.

“We should get back to the shelter,” Liam says eventually.

“Right,” Brett says. “Okay. Let’s go.”

~*~

“What’s that face for?”

Liam looks up; he’s been gnawing on his lower lip, brows furrowed in confusion. “Huh?” he mumbles distractedly.

“You look confused. Which is cute, but a little worrying. What’s up?”

Liam turns his laptop to Brett. “I got a grade back,” he says. “For my major essay.”

“Oh.” Brett looks, expecting it to be low just from Liam’s expression - he’s pleasantly surprised to see the mark is in the low nineties. “Liam, that’s great. So why do you look worried?”

“I’m pretty sure she marked me wrong,” Liam says dubiously. “I felt pretty crap about that one when I submitted it.”

Brett smiles. “Liam, it’s your grade,” he reassures Liam gently. “Look. There’s her feedback, right there at the bottom.” He sits back. “Why’re you so surprised?”

Liam shrugs. “Just wasn’t expecting it is all. I wasn’t feeling that great when I wrote it. You know.” Liam taps his head, smiling a little. “It’s just a nice surprise.”

“If this is what you write when you aren’t feeling great, I’d love to read what you wrote when you were feeling good,” Brett murmurs. “What was the topic?”

“Structural corruption in capitalism,” Liam says, and Brett blinks. He’s smart - in his own way. With medicine, and numbers, and taking care of people. Liam’s smart in a totally different way. The kind of way that probably really pisses off old conservative people.

He tilts his head, smiles, and reaches up to tug the purple strip in Liam’s hair gently. “I’m proud of you,” he says, and his heart lurches when Liam gives him a wide, happy smile. Liam’s not used to hearing stuff like that, and Brett forgets. Forgets the effect it has on him and his overall mood.

“So,” Brett says, smiling. “You probably deserve something for a grade that good.”

Liam laughs a little, looks away. “I didn’t do anything spectacular, you know. I wrote four thousand words of bull and tricked someone into thinking it was good.”

“You wrote four thousand words of a really well-researched argument and your teacher, who went to school for years to learn how to grade you, gave you a good mark,” Brett says gently. “Don’t tear yourself down like that. You worked hard.”

“I’m not used to not tearing myself down, so-”

“I’ll teach you not to.”

Liam smiles, again, and shuffles over on the mattress to kiss Brett gently. His lips are soft and supple, and he smells like shower gel and laundry detergent - recognisably Liam. This is how Liam smells at almost every point in the day, and Brett loves it; he loves the cleanliness of Liam’s scent, like he’s something brand new and amazing and promising. And he is. So much so that Brett’s terrified he’ll fuck it up. Fuck Liam up, or hurt him.

He wraps a hand around the back of Liam’s neck. “Let me give you something,” he murmurs.

“Like what?” Liam whispers into his mouth.

Brett doesn’t hesitate; he begins to slide his free hand up Liam’s thigh. Even though it’s covered with denim, Liam’s breath hitches almost dramatically; he’s holding Brett’s hip with his left hand, and Brett thinks it must be the single most gratifying thing in the world to feel Liam’s fingertips sink forcefully into his skin - bruising. Marking. All because Brett touched him.

“I want to,” Brett murmurs. “If you want me to.”

Liam licks his lips. “Yes,” he breathes.

Brett smiles, lets his hand continue its journey up Liam’s thigh and into the crease of it before it reaches the bulge in his jeans. Liam’s surprised, shuddery inhale sounds like music to Brett, and when he rubs - gently, maybe a little uncertainly, Liam’s fingers dig deeper into his skin.

“I know you haven’t been with anyone since we made this a thing,” Brett whispers, and he does know that; Liam stopped going out at random hours and coming home reeking of perfume or aftershave or other people’s beds and skin, and they never agreed to be exclusive, and there was never a guarantee that what they had then would become what they have now, but Liam gave him that. That exclusivity and trust.

Liam swallows. “I haven’t.”

“I know. Been a while.”

“Mm.”

“Can I take these off you?”

“Yes,” Liam breathes, and it sounds almost like he’s begging without using the words. Brett tips him back on the mattress and rucks his shirt up and admires the expanse of pale skin at his fingertips, still a little golden from the previous summer, and presses his thumbs into the sharp peaks of Liam’s hip bones.

“This too,” Brett says, and helps Liam strip his t-shirt off, revealing the entirety of his torso - the compact, muscular set of his shoulders and chest, the swell of his biceps, the tapering of his waist into his pelvis.

Liam moves, covers his face. Brett tilts his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Liam mumbles.

Brett pulls at his hand a little, and Liam lets him tug it away from his face; Brett’s surprised to see him tinted pink around the cheeks and neck. He still raises his chin belligerently, though, like he’s daring Brett to say something.

“What’s going on?” Brett asks.

Liam shrugs. “Nobody’s ever looked at me like that before,” he says. “And… usually… I’m on top. You know.” He winces a little. “Even when I’m on the bottom, I’m on top.”

Brett hesitates before speaking. “Liam… have you… ever been in a relationship?” he asks carefully. “Or… is it just sex, usually?”

“What do you think?” Liam asks quietly.

A whole lot of puzzle pieces tumble neatly into place then; Liam might be Brett’s first guy, but Brett is Liam’s first real relationship. They’re firsts for each other.

“We don’t have to do it like this,” Brett says gently.

“I didn’t say it was bad,” Liam retorts. “It’s just different. I like it, it’s just - I dunno. Something about - you’re bigger than me. I’m not really used to that.”

“Are you scared?”

“No,” Liam murmurs. “Opposite. I feel really safe.”

Something warm blooms to life inside Brett’s chest; he smiles. “Okay,” he says. “Well. Safe I can work with.” He leans back a little; he’s been straddling Liam’s thighs. “How about we get these jeans off, huh?”

“I’ll be really fucking disappointed if I don’t,” Liam says bluntly, and Brett laughs, begins to unzip them and pull them down. Liam’s wearing boxer briefs, and the outline of his dick inside them is a thoroughly exciting, if not new, sight for Brett.

He cups Liam gently, and Liam’s eyes slide closed; he bites his lower lip and sighs. Brett feels him swell in his palm, marvels at the sensation as he reaches up with his other hand to tweak at Liam’s nipple. Liam shivers weakly.

“Can I take-”

“Yeah,” Liam mumbles. Brett grins as he begins to tug Liam’s briefs down, marvelling at the hard, solid line of his dick curving against his belly.

“You’re beautiful,” Brett says, and Liam flushes pink again. “What? Someone’s gotta tell you.”

“Shut up,” Liam mumbles, and Brett smiles wider. He takes Liam’s dick, slowly, marvelling at the way it causes Liam to basically stop breathing.

“What do you like?”

Liam stares at him. “Uh - you?”

“I mean in bed.”

“Oh.” Liam shrugs. “Everything, sort of.” His hips move for a moment; Brett’s started stroking him. He can hear Liam breathing a little faster than usual. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Brett likes being in control; he presses down on Liam’s shoulder and watches carefully, making sure that it’s okay, that Liam isn’t uncomfortable or freaking out. He isn’t; if anything, he melts back into the sheets and lets Brett take control.

He soon discovers that he loves watching Liam writhe underneath him, that he scratches Brett’s thigh with one hand when Brett orders him not to touch; that when he’s about to come, and Brett tells him not to, he doesn’t. Brett will worry later that it’s a performance, and that Liam’s just trying to please him, but Liam will truthfully assure him that’s not the case.

When Liam finally does come - with Brett’s hand wrapped firmly around him and the other holding him to the mattress by his chest - it’s with his neck and back arching and Brett’s names falling out of his mouth like he’s helpless to stop it.

His legs are shaking by the end of it, and Brett’s hard himself, just from having watched. Liam raises a hand to push his hair back, and the light sheen of sweat gleaming across his skin highlights the bottom of his ribcage.

“I’m gonna clean you up,” Brett whispers, almost tenderly.

Liam’s eyes come back down and focus on him blearily. “Mmkay,” he replies softly. “What about you?”

“That was for you. For your grade.”

“Right.” Liam smiles sleepily. “Gonna get good grades more often now.”

Brett smiles as he gets off the bed and washes his hands off, then brings a wet washcloth back to Liam. Liam grumbles as Brett cleans him up, squirming and protesting that the cloth is tickling him; Brett tries to hold him still again, but it’s playful this time.

When he’s done with that, he ditches the cloth in the laundry basket and crawls up onto the bed with Liam, who’s pulled his boxers back on and is lying on his stomach, looking sated and sleepy, the muscles in his back relaxed with his breathing. Brett stretches out beside him and watches for a while - almost five minutes, or at least long enough for Liam to begin to doze off.

“How come you didn’t tell me?”

Liam rolls over sleepily. “Hmm?”

Brett smiles; Liam’s hair is mussed and chaotic, the purple bleeding over into his natural blonde, and Brett thinks he’s beautiful, especially with his eyes soft and drowsy on Brett’s face. “How come you didn’t tell me I’m your first relationship?” he clarifies.

“Mm.” Liam stuffs his face into the pillow near Brett’s head. “Embarrassing.”

“What? Why?”

“Because,” Liam mumbles. “I’ve had sex with loads of people but no relationship. I feel like a slut.”

“You aren’t a slut. Not that being a slut is a bad thing. Besides, I kind of like it.” Brett strokes some of the purple hair back; Liam’s roots are showing again. Has he really been here that long? “That I’m your first relationship I mean. It’s nice.”

Liam tilts his head a little. “You’re the only person worth trusting,” he admits. “I wouldn’t have let anyone else crawl on top of me and hold me down and tell me when to come.”

Brett smiles. “I’m the only one who’s got to do that?”

“Bet you feel special now, huh?” Liam asks, and his eyes are crinkled at the corners - smiling, even as his mouth barely twitches.

“Yeah. I do.”

“Good. You are.”

Brett opens his mouth, then closes it. Liam meant that. It feels nice to know - to feel it. He’s watching Brett now - maybe to make sure the comment is sinking in.

He must realise it is, because he closes his eyes. “Fooling around with someone who actually means something to me is pretty great,” he murmurs.

Brett smiles softly. “Yeah?”

“Mm. Feel safe with you.” Liam starts to blink his eyes open. “I should study,” he yawns. “Finals soon. What’re you gonna do?”

Brett levers himself upright. “Shower,” he says. “You wanna join me?”

“Mm, maybe later. You cleaned me up okay.”

With that, Brett heads off to the shower - Liam takes his laptop out into the living room, which is nice to see. He tends to hide when he’s going through a rough time mentally, and sitting out in the living room means he feels okay enough to face human interaction.

He stays under the spray for a few minutes before stepping out, hearing the clack of Liam’s fingers against his keyboard even over the bathroom fan. It’s a comforting sound. Reminds him of home - of his new normal.

He’s just bending over to towel off his hair when the bathroom door opens, and Liam sticks his head in. “Yo, Brett,” he says. “Your laptop’s ringing.”

“My laptop?” Brett wonders.

Liam nods.

“Okay, I’ll be there in a second.” Brett washes his hands quickly and heads to the living room; sure enough, Skype’s ringtone is blaring out from the speakers, a tinny, irritating noise.

He doesn’t recognise the screen name; he frowns, hesitates, shoots Liam a look. Liam - who’s curled up on the couch with his own laptop in his lap, studying - shrugs a little.

Brett hits answer; the screen starts to load.

“Brett?” a voice comes, hesitantly.

His heart leaps. “Lori?” he replies.

The screen finally finishes loading; his sister’s face appears in beautiful HD. She’s smiling. “Hi,” she says.

“Oh my God,” Brett breathes, leaning forward. “Lori. How did you-”

“Mom and Dad went out,” she says. “And they left me alone.” She smiles back at him. “You have Internet? I didn’t know if you would, or… so does this mean you’re okay?” Her voice rises at the end, an inflection of fear and hope in it.

“I’m okay, Lori,” he says, smiling. “Don’t I look okay?”

“No, you do. I’m really happy to see you, Brett. I miss you.”

A lump rises in his throat. “Me too.”

“When are you coming home?”

Liam shifts on the couch, presses his thigh into the back of Brett’s neck gently, just to comfort him. Brett appreciates it immensely. “I can’t, Lor,” he murmurs. “Not with Mom and Dad…”

“Dad wants you to come home,” she says. “And I think Mom misses you. She cries a lot. They don’t want you to be bi anymore.”

It still stings, even now, even knowing it right from the start. “I know. I can’t help it.”

“I know.” She’s nodding earnestly, seriously. “The school guidance counsellor told me that you can’t change who you like. It’s okay, Brett. I still love you. Even if you like guys the way I like them.”

He swallows; his eyes are stinging. Liam’s quiet behind him. “Thanks, Lor.” He wipes his eyes a little. “Wait, you like guys?”

She giggles. “Just one.”

“Just one, huh? Do Mom and Dad know?”

“No,” she says belligerently. “Mom said I shouldn’t date until I know where I stand with God, but I don’t think I believe in God anyway and I don’t think he’s very nice if he’d ban you from Heaven for kissing boys, so I’m punishing her with silence.”

Brett’s surprised when Liam snorts with laughter behind him; Lori perks up.

“Is someone else there?”

Brett smiles. “I’m living with some people. One of them is here.”

“Hi!” Lori calls.

Liam jumps, apparently startled at being spoken to. “Hi,” he says back.

“I can’t see you. What do you look like?”

Liam slides off the couch and comes to sit next to Brett, giving an awkward wave. “Hello.”

“I love your hair,” Lori beams. “Is that purple? How’d you do that?”

Liam smiles, endearingly shyly. “Thanks. My roommate did it.” He leans on his hands. “So you’re Brett’s sister, huh?”

She puffs her chest out. “The one and only.”

“I liked that stuff you said about punishing your mom with silence. You’ve got morals. I like 'em.”

“My guidance counsellor says we should treat others how we’d like to be treated,” Lori says sincerely. “But I’m bending the rules because I bet Mom wouldn’t like it if I kicked her older brother out of the house for liking boys.”

“You’re such a cool kid,” Liam says, sounding genuinely awestruck.

“Am I cooler than Brett?”

“You’re so much cooler than Brett.”

“Also, I’m almost twelve,” Lori adds. “So I’m not even really a kid anymore, like I’m barely a kid. Mom lets me read Seventeen magazine sometimes.”

“Really? I wasn’t allowed to read Seventeen magazine.”

“Well, Mom makes sure she takes out all the pages that have sex stuff. But my friends send me photos anyway. That’s really sad though. Do you get to read it now?”

“Guess I could,” Liam says thoughtfully.

“Which part did you wanna read the most?”

“I didn’t really wanna read it. I just wanted posters of all the hot guys.”

Brett chokes on a mouthful of hot tea; his sort-of boyfriend and his little sister are bonding… over hot guys. It’s a lot to take in.

Lori giggles. “Do you like guys too?”

“Yeah.”

“Like Brett does?”

“I just like guys. But yeah, like Brett does.”

She tilts her head. “Do you guys kiss?”

Liam goes fire-engine read and opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a weak stammering noise. Brett isn’t sure what to say.

“I won’t tell Mom and Dad,” Lori says. “You can punish them too. With silence.”

Brett chuckles. “Yeah. We kiss.”

“A lot? Or just sometimes?”

“A lot,” Brett admits, and Lori giggles again. He’s so happy to hear her laugh he pretty much doesn’t care what he has to say to hear it. “Lor, will you get in trouble for this?”

“No,” she says cheerfully. “I practiced with my friends first. I delete the Desktop icon when I’m done and Mom and Dad don’t know I used Skype. And I chose a weird name too, so that I could have, um - Becky called it something, uh, paws…?”

“Plausible deniability,” Liam supplies.

“Yeah!”

“I really like you,” Liam grins. “You’re smart. And you’re a budding anarchist, too.”

“Don’t lure my baby sister to the dark side, Liam,” Brett laughs. “Do your friends know about me, Lori?”

“Yeah. I told them. I was really upset when you had to go. And Cady’s mom said it was terrible of her to kick you out and that she’d never do that to any of her kids.”

“Cady’s got a good mom,” Brett says. “I’m sorry you’ve been upset.”

“It’s not your fault,” Lori says tartly. “It’s Mom and Dad’s. They’re bigots. We learned that word in class the other day. Mrs. Fenway kept talking about people hating Muslims and how stupid it was, because more Muslims are killed by ISIL than white people. And then when we asked her what it meant, she said it meant anyone who had unreasonable intolerance to people who had different opinions or lifestyles.” Her voice trips on the last sentence; she’s repeating something she memorised, but Brett’s so proud of her, he could cry.

“So Mom and Dad are bigots,” she finishes. “And I don’t wanna be like that. Can I come live with you?”

Brett smiles sadly. “I wish, baby. But you’ve gotta stay in school. Besides, I don’t have a job - Liam and his roommates are just really nice and are letting me crash here.”

Lori sighs. “I really miss you, Brett.”

“I miss you too, Lor,” Brett murmurs, and Liam’s hand squeezes his gently.

“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I know. But.” She perks up a little bit. “My friends have been asking if you’ve got a cute boyfriend, and now I can tell them you do.”

“You think I’m cute?” Liam teases.

Lori blushes. “You’re pretty cute,” she mumbles shyly.

“Hey.” Brett loops his arm over Liam’s neck affectionately, smiling when Liam leans into him. “He’s mine. You can’t have him. He’s too old for you anyway.”

“How old are you?” Lori asks curiously.

“Nineteen,” Liam says, leaning his head on Brett’s shoulder comfortably.

“You’re younger than Brett.”

“Yeah. He’s a cradle-snatcher.”

“What’s that?”

“Something you can learn about when you’re older,” Brett chuckles. “When’re they coming home?”

“I don’t know,” Lori says. “They’ve been going out lots since you left. Mom keeps talking about putting you back on the path of purity and righteousness.”

“Jesus Christ,” Liam mutters.

“I hope your parents aren’t mean like mine are,” Lori says to Liam suddenly.

Liam’s face freezes for a moment; his hand, which is still holding Brett’s, clenches tightly, so hard the knuckles turn white. For a moment, Brett thinks he’s going to have to step in - to say to Lori, _don’t ask Liam about his family; don’t ask him about his dad; don’t ask him what his parents were like._

Then Liam relaxes - forces himself to relax - and says, “Don’t you worry about me, Lori. And besides, your brother’s taking really good care of me.”

“Is he?” Lori asks skeptically. “Because Mom always had to tell him to do his laundry. And he used to leave the dishes next to the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher. She always used to say she should’ve put him in Home Economics class because he was so bad at being clean.”

Liam laughs. “Really? He’s great around here. He cooks, and he cleans - hey, we even call him Cinderella.”

She giggles. “But he’s a boy.”

“Well, he’s the best boy Cinderella ever,” Liam laughs. “Trust me. You have no idea how good your brother is at folding laundry.”

They talk for a while. Brett lets his hand drift over to Liam’s side, then his back, and then under his shirt; he begins to stroke Liam’s spine lightly. Liam’s body goes lax like a marionette with cut strings; he must enjoy that. Brett makes a note of that; spine. Fifth vertebra down. Scratch with nails.

Lori has to go after a while, when she hears their parents’ car pulling back into the driveway, but she tells Brett she loves him before she does and even blows a kiss at the screen. The moment it goes black, Brett feels his stomach drop through the floor.

Liam looks at him. “Your sister’s a really sweet kid,” he murmurs.

Brett nods. His throat feels horrible and tight and he wants to cry. He’d refused to think, before, about how much he missed his little sister - focussed instead on the bitterness and resentment that seeps into his being when he thinks about his parents, instead.

“I really miss her,” he says, embarrassed when his voice breaks. There are tears running down his cheeks suddenly, and he feels like he can’t breathe.

Liam shuffles closer to him, puts an arm around Brett’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs helplessly. “I wish… there was something I could do.”

They sit like that for a while. Brett thinks for a few minutes that he’s going to have a panic attack, which will be his third that week, but he listens to Liam breathe and his own chest loosens with the sound. He tries to follow the same breathing pattern. Liam breathes slowly, calmly - like he’s in no rush to leech the oxygen from the air, almost as if he doesn’t need it.

Liam leans back when Brett’s breathing has slowed somewhat, looks at him softly, and pulls his sleeves over his hands. “I know it’s not much,” Liam murmurs softly, wiping at Brett’s eyes carefully with his sleeves. “But… my home is your home, okay? Everything I have is yours. I know it isn’t much - I have like five hundred dollars to my name - but… it is _yours_ , you know?”

Brett nods, trying to take a deep breath. “Thank you,” he says, embarrassed when it comes out as a whimper.

Liam nods. His expression is soft - broken open, totally, letting Brett see everything that’s going on in his mind. It only ever happens when he’s scared or upset; Liam keeps a lot of his hurts to himself, even now, but where Brett’s concerned, he’s always emotionally available.

Liam smiles kindly, wipes Brett’s eyes with his sleeves again. “It’ll be alright,” he says quietly. “Sometimes I don’t believe it when I say it. Actually, most of the time. But it’ll be okay.”

Brett nods. He wouldn’t believe it if he told himself - but somehow, he believes Liam, in Liam, in the way Liam opens himself up and allows Brett to see him and trusts that he’ll stay anyway.

“Yeah,” he says, finally managing to speak. “I know.”

~*~

Liam has a late night class a week or so later; Brett goes with him.

The snow is beginning to melt; it’s moving tentatively closer to spring, which Brett is grateful for. Even so, Liam’s class starting at four and finishing at five thirty means that it’s dark when he exits the building.

Brett’s waiting on a bench outside; it’s one of the older buildings, with sixties-style architecture. When Liam steps out, he doesn’t immediately come over; instead, he smiles and waves.

Brett hesitates before standing up and going over. Liam grins wider.

“I have something to show you,” he says.

“Okay,” Brett says confusedly, moving towards him. “What’re you showing me?”

“Well, you’ll see if you follow,” Liam teases, holding the door open for Brett and letting him through. “This way.”

Brett follows; Liam’s heading towards the stairwell of the building. Brett initially thinks it must be something in a classroom - but they climb five flights before Liam heads for a door at the end of the hallway, and then they’re climbing more.

Eventually, Liam pushes open a door at the top of the stairs - and they step out onto the roof, which is freezing cold. Brett shivers as the air hits him, watching Liam close the door carefully.

“So, what’s this?” he asks.

Liam sits down near the edge of the building and plants his palms on the concrete behind him, tilting his face back. “Look up.”

Brett sits down and mimics Liam’s posture, stunned when tipping his head towards the sky reveals a swathe of stars glittering so brightly it’s like they’re within reach.

“Wow,” he breathes.

“Yeah.” Liam nods. “The smog isn’t as bad up here. Cold, but you can see everything.”

Brett listens. The wind whistles lightly through the buildings, but there’s almost no other sound on the otherwise abandoned campus. “It’s quiet,” he realises, surprised.

Liam looks at him, smiles a little. “Why do you think I come up here?”

“How’d you find it?”

Liam shrugs. “I had a friend my first year of college that used to use this rooftop to film short movies. Turns out the door’s never unlocked and the maintenance guy has only caught me once. Once he realised I wasn’t vandalising anything he just sort of left me to it.”

“What happened to your friend?” Brett asks.

Liam looks startled. “Huh?”

“You said you had a friend. What happened?”

Liam swallows. “He died,” he says.

“Oh,” Brett murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

Liam shrugs. “There… wasn’t much anyone could’ve done. He overdosed. On purpose. There were so many drugs in him that by the time they got him to the hospital, it was kind of… well. He was beyond helping really.”

“Liam, that’s terrible,” Brett says softly.

“Yeah.” Liam looks a little awkward. “We never figured out why. He didn’t leave a note or anything. I thought they always left a note.”

“Not always,” Brett murmurs. “How do you know it was on purpose?”

“We just… believed what his girlfriend told us, I guess. She knew him better than anyone. I dunno what’s worse - thinking he was in enough pain to do that, or that he might’ve done it accidentally and never wanted to die in the first place.”

Brett’s not sure what to say to that. He rests a hand over Liam’s; Liam’s looking up at the stars and not seeming necessarily upset, just a little sombre.

“He had a really nice service,” Liam says suddenly. “Lots of people went.”

“That’s good.”

Liam crosses his legs and leans forward. Brett mimics the action, shuffles a little closer, and presses their shoulders together.

“You ever think about… like, the people you’ve outlived?” Liam asks. “That they’re supposed to be the same age as you but they aren’t and they’re just sort of… gone? But they still seem like they’re there because you remember them?”

Brett nods. “I had a friend in high school who died of cancer,” he says. “Every year it hits me that it’s been four, five, six years since he passed away. It seems like he’s getting further and further away. I thought you weren’t supposed to start losing people until you were a little older. But I’ve only ever been to funerals for people my age.”

Liam nods. “It feels kind of… selfish,” he mumbles. “That I think about it and how it affects me and not him or his family or girlfriend.”

“It’s not selfish. He was your friend too.”

“Yeah, but other people knew him better than me.”

Brett thinks about that for a moment. “He brought you up here,” he points out. “This place meant something to him, even if it was just a quiet spot to do filming. He was close enough to you for that. You’re allowed to mourn him the same way anyone else did.”

Liam nods. There’s a long silence; Liam’s warm against his side.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Liam says. “That’s really crappy.”

“It’s weird,” Brett says softly. “He was okay with it in the end, even though nobody else was. He was just shitty he never got to see his baseball team in the play offs.”

“Maybe he had to be okay with it,” Liam says. “When Ethan died, it was like - I dunno. Like lightning. Nobody saw it coming. Not even his girlfriend, really.”

Brett sighs slowly. “If suicide is like lightning, I guess cancer is like thunder,” he murmurs. “You know some bad shit is coming, but you don’t know when it’s gonna hit.” He looks down at his hands. “He knew I was bi,” he murmurs.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Before anyone else ever did. Made me promise that I’d eventually be true to myself, even if I ended up hiding it from my family my whole life.” Brett snorts. “He said he wanted me to get laid for him.”

“Did you?”

“With a girl. But yeah.” Brett looks up at the stars. “It was years before I told my parents,” he admits. “I just… I couldn’t. And I almost wish I’d done it sooner. Maybe they wouldn’t have kicked me out if I’d still been a kid.”

There’s a long pause from Liam, but he’s looking at Brett appraisingly. “You know,” he says slowly, “I spent a really long time not fighting back against my dad and then wishing I’d just started earlier, too. And then I realised that if I’d fought back earlier, I would’ve still been punished. Maybe just differently.” He shrugs. “It’s kind of apples and oranges, because they never kicked me out… still fruit, though.”

Domestic abuse. Financial and emotional abuse. Still abuse. Brett gets what Liam’s getting at. He still doesn’t think he has it nearly as bad as Liam, and maybe that’s why he’s still pining for his family and his home and his old life.

Liam gives him a little nudge. “Well,” he says. “This got fucking depressing.”

Brett’s so surprised he gives a strange, strangled half-laugh. Liam quirks his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything else.

“Tell me about something happy, then,” Brett says.

Liam looks up thoughtfully. “My gramma,” he says. “Mom’s mom. I don’t think she knew about what Dad did to me otherwise she would’ve gotten me out of there. But she used to have me on weekends and we’d make pie together and she’d let me eat as much as I wanted right before sending me home. Maybe she could tell I didn’t wanna go.”

“You made pie?” Brett asks.

Liam shrugs. “I don’t want you to think my entire life has been one tragic chapter after another,” he says. “Because it hasn’t. Dad started getting really shitty when I was eleven or twelve. That was when the drinking got worse. But I mean - we still went on family vacations, you know? They watched me play lacrosse. We even went to church at Easter and Christmas. And when I was really little I used to ride on his shoulders.” Liam shrugs. “He wasn’t… a monster all the time,” he murmurs. “It’s just that we never knew when he would be. We were normal sometimes.”

Brett nods. He finds it hard to imagine. “How did your parents react to you moving out?” he asks.

“Uh.” Liam winces. “Look, if I tell you that story, you’re definitely going to think my life is the most tragic story you’ve ever heard.”

“If you don’t want to tell me-”

“That’s not it,” Liam says quickly. “That’s never it anymore. I just really don’t like making you sad.”

Brett smiles. “I appreciate it. But it’s worth it. So, if you’ll tell me…”

Liam nods and takes a breath. “I waited for a week after I turned eighteen,” he says quietly. “You know. Didn’t wanna mar the week of my birthday because they seemed, I dunno. Functional. When I told them, though - Mom started crying which I saw coming but Dad… Dad went real quiet. I went to work and when I came home he was shitfaced drunk and uh.” Liam swallows; his eyes look red, like he might be about to cry. “I don’t think he’s ever - it was…” He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it; a few tears roll down his cheeks. “Yeah. He belted me up pretty bad that night. Worse than I’ve ever been before.”

“Liam…” Brett reaches out, puts his arm around Liam’s shoulder. Liam nibbles on his lower lip, which is trembling.

“So I packed my shit up and I left that night,” Liam says, his words tumbling out and flowing together like converging points of a stream. “I was pissing blood for a week. Hayden and Mason were already up here and they pretty much pooled their savings together to get me to a doctor, and the doctor - some poor overworked bastard in a shitty all-hours clinic - took one look at me and said I shouldn’t even be walking around. That I should’ve gone to the E.R and everything but I couldn’t afford that.”

“What did you do?” Brett breathes. “You said you were pissing blood-”

“Oh yeah, I was. I spent two weeks sleeping in Hayden’s bed with her before dragging myself out and getting a job with her. Then I spent the third week putting fucking flat-pack Ikea shit together. But I was happy.”

“You were happy?” Brett asks slowly.

“I was out,” Liam says, and he breathes the words like he’s reliving the same relief he went through the first time. “Didn’t matter how much pain I was in or that Hayden’s perfume made me fucking sneeze or that I had no idea what my future was even gonna look like. I got blindsided because I didn’t expect him to react like that.”

Brett nods. Liam wipes his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Didn’t think I’d fucking cry.”

“I think you’ve earned a little crying,” Brett says shakily.

“Trust me, man, the first few weeks I did nothing but,” Liam says tiredly. “It was shitty but it was familiar and it was home and I missed it. Sort of.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I haven’t really spoken to them since then. I’m… one of the reasons I’m so pissed at Mom, still, is because she knew he was gonna pull that shit and she didn’t text me to warn me and she used to, you know? As I got older she’d just tell me to stay away from the house.”

“She should have kicked him out, not told you to stay away,” Brett says heatedly. “She should’ve protected you.”

Liam looks at him tiredly. “With what?” he asks softly. “She was a victim too, Brett. And I feel guilty for leaving sometimes. When I was there, I could get between them. When she calls… I dunno. I get angry because she still doesn’t understand why I won’t just come home but I feel like I fucking abandoned her at his mercy, you know?”

Brett closes his eyes. He can’t refute any of that.

Liam rubs the back of his neck. “My grandma still sends me birthday cards with money in them, though,” he says, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “I’ve gone to see her a few times. You know, I just lie low while I’m there. Fix her gutters and shit.”

Brett smiles. “I’m glad you had your grandma,” he says.

“Yeah.” Liam motions up. “She used to tell me about the stars and stuff. Once I was old enough I used to get on YouTube and listen to radio broadcasts of the first spacewalks, and watch documentaries and stuff. Gramma got a computer just so I could do it while I was at her house. I got obsessed with the stars and shit. Think I still know some of the constellations now.”

“Really?” Brett asks.

“Mhm. Haven’t come up here in a while. When I first moved here, though? With Hayden and Mason? I used to spend hours up here. I just… hated being around people. And I felt bad for Hayden and Mason, having to put up with my shit. I like high places. And places far away from people, and noise.”

“You brought me,” Brett says, surprised.

Liam smiles. “You aren’t people. You’re Brett.”

He says it like there’s a distinction; like there’s something inherently different about Brett that makes him not like everyone else, like he’s not a person, but something else, mimicking a person’s visage. And Brett’s felt a little different and out of place his whole life - not religious enough for his mother, not obedient enough for his father, and certainly not what either of them wanted or expected when it came to whose pillow he would choose to lay his head on. Not upstanding; not _enough_ , no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted to be.

This, though - this tiny margin of difference that places him separately from “people” and makes him “Brett” in Liam’s eyes - feels good. It’s a narrow space, but he finds it breathes easily and that he feels at home, comfortable. This is the one difference he doesn’t mind, he decides; the difference that makes Liam feel safe enough to bring him to the top of this building and pour his words into Brett like a stream of trust and let him in.

Brett watches as Liam raises his hands and wipes his eyes again, giving a small sniff before settling again. He seems okay. As okay as he could be, anyway.

“Thank you,” he says.

Liam turns his head to the side and smiles. “For what?”

His fingertips are tracing the inside of Brett’s palm; they’re cold, and they leave tiny trails of fiery ice across Brett’s skin. A reminder that he’s alive, tangible; a reminder that Liam wants to touch and be close and expects nothing of him. Lets him be enough without demanding more.

“Everything,” Brett says.

“You’ve done way more for me than I’ve done for you,” Liam says.

“That’s bullshit,” Brett retorts. “You took me in off the streets, Liam. Helped me whenever I had a panic attack. Fed me. You bought me this jacket-”

“And what about you, huh?” Liam asks, tilting his head with a small smile. “You’re pretty much the only person I’ve ever met who’s made it feel okay for me to be scared. Hayden and Mason are great, don’t get me wrong. But… I could never be totally honest and open around them, you know? I don’t want them to worry about me.”

There’s so much Brett wants to tell him. About how his mother’s eyes felt like icy disappointment whenever they alighted on Brett’s shoulders; about his father, and how he was never really there at all, unless he was nodding along gravely with his mother. About the way they pushed - do this. Be this. Like this. Want this. And while Brett agreed, over and over - _yes. I will. Yes. I promise. I do._ \- it never felt quite right; the only words that ever felt true, in any sense, were the ones he never spoke. The ones he never once dared to - _I can’t. I’m sorry. No. I don’t want to. I don’t want this. Please._

He wants to try and explain the weight of it all; the way it bore down on his shoulders and made it impossible to breathe; the way their expectations and meeting those expectations came with the price tag of their love, which was never guaranteed should he fail. He wants to try and explain the depth of his helplessness - of knowing, inherently, that there would be no acceptance should he be anything other than exactly what they had planned, well before he had even been born. He wants to try and explain to Liam that he feels as if he never had a chance; he wasn’t born a blank slate, and he couldn’t perform to his parents’ standards.

Instead - unable to wrap his head around it all, the vastness of it, the injustice of knowing he was doomed to fail before he considered trying - he says, “I’m scared too.”

Liam looks surprised for a moment, and then he softens. “Maybe everyone is,” he says. “Maybe nobody says it because we’re all afraid of telling the wrong people.”

“Are you still scared?”

Liam puts his head on his knees, his arms wrapped around them, and in that moment, he looks like a little kid - and Brett can see it, now; the way Liam, with his small stature, would have easily folded himself into the crevices of his house, trying to avoid being seen; the way Liam, slight and knock-kneed with youth, would have easily broken beneath his father’s fists. The way a young Liam, knowing he was physically defenceless, unable to rely on his mother for protection, would have done the next best thing - shut people out, hidden the fear, and become as hard as cold as ice.

_Except you didn’t quite reach that last part, did you?_ Brett thinks. _You never did get to that cold as ice part. You do a good job of pretending… but you’re as soft as water._

“Yeah,” Liam says finally.

“Of them?”

“Not of them. What can they do to me that they haven’t already? Nah. I’m… scared I’ll always be fucked up, or struggling. Always two steps, five steps, ten steps behind everyone else. That I’m never gonna catch up. Half the time I still feel like the same scared little kid who hid between the bathroom counter and the toilet because his dad couldn’t easily pull him out from there.”

It’s as explicit as Liam’s ever been, in that moment, to mention the way he reacted to the abuse - he’s heard Liam speak about what happened, and when, and for how long, and who did it. But he’s never heard about how Liam dealt with it in the moment - never been let that close.

“I grew out of that spot,” Liam says eventually. “Got too big for it. Bigger I got, the less places there were to hide. Angrier I got, the less likely I was to try and find them. I fought back once.”

“Once?”

“He put me in the hospital. Ribs. Four broken. Wrist - that got broken too. I’ve had lots of broken bones. I was fifteen. Told them it happened at lacrosse. They didn’t believe me, but they couldn’t do anything if I didn’t own up.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Liam shrugs. “I knew where I stood there. They would’ve taken me into foster care. I wouldn’t have been able to stay in that area - would’ve been in foster homes, couldn’t have talked to Hayden and Mason… and they were the only things keeping me going at that point. I decided I’d rather deal with getting belted around than the rest of it.”

It makes sick, twisted, really fucked-up sense; Liam bided his time and left as soon as possible, with a safety net in the form of Mason and Hayden, rather than face potentially worse in the foster care system.

“You ever fight back?” Liam asks.

Brett knows what he’s talking about. “Yeah. Once. Like you.”

“Yeah?”

“I came out,” Brett says softly.

Liam closes his eyes like it physically hurts him to hear Brett say it. “Man. I fucking hate all of them. My parents, your parents, and every single fucking adult who didn’t lift a finger to help us.”

Liam’s hatred is caustic, spills over and pours out and begins to singe the upper layer of Brett’s consciousness. He puts his arm around Liam gently, because he knows that Liam uses the anger to not have to feel anything else, and he doesn’t want that.

“It’s fine to hate them,” Brett says. “It’s not fine to let it kill you.”

Liam takes a deep breath, holds it - for almost a minute, until Brett’s worried he’s going to pass out - and then releases it, slowly, blinking. He seems calmer.

“Good job,” Brett says, genuinely proud that Liam managed to talk himself down.

Liam smiles bashfully. “I don’t wanna ruin your memory of this place,” he says. “Considering it’s my favourite and everything.”

Brett stares out across the rooftop, at the lights of the city, and wonders where this is all going. Months ago, he couldn’t have imagined Liam, with his purple hair and pierced ears and hard exterior and soft, warm heart, being in his life, bright and alive and there. Similarly, he can’t look into his future without Liam being in it somehow; he doesn’t want to ever not know Liam.

“I think my life would be really different if I hadn’t met you,” Brett says.

Liam grins. “Yeah. You never would have known about Mass Effect.”

Brett laughs at that. He thinks he might sort of love Liam, and the way Liam slots under his arm perfectly when Brett drapes it across Liam’s shoulders to stave off the chill, his hair stirring a little in the breeze on the rooftop.

He won’t tell Liam that. It’s just a spark right now, not the fully-fledged bonfire Brett knows it will be, but it’s there. And it’s enough to keep him going.

“It’s cold,” Brett says. “You wanna get going?”

“Okay.” Liam starts to stand up. “We could get coffee on the way home if you want.”

“Liam… you don’t have to buy me-”

“I know I don’t have to, I want to.”

That’s how they end up on the train, holding hot cups of takeaway hot chocolate, staring out at the stars through the carriage windows. The train is almost empty; it’s past peak hour, but it’s nowhere near the last train for the night.

Brett looks at Liam. His cheeks and nose are red from the cold, but he looks content and even happy as he leans back into the seat - and Brett’s shoulder, which is tucked just slightly under Liam’s. Brett doesn’t mind. It’s the shoulder that has the metal plates in it - if Brett looks, really closely, when Liam’s shirt tugs down a little, he can see the marks.

Liam blinks at him. “Have I got something on my face?”

“Yeah,” Brett says, smiling when he sees the abrupt look of alarm on Liam’s face. “Cute. It’s all over you.”

Liam wrinkles his nose, scowls, and huffs. Brett laughs. He likes stirring Liam up now that he knows how to do it without genuinely annoying him.

Liam’s phone rings as they’re stepping into the apartment complex. He takes it out and looks at it for a long moment, his expression almost unbearably injured and sad. Brett doesn’t have to ask who it is.

Liam declines the call after watching his phone ring for almost twenty seconds, then tucks it back into his pocket and hits the button for the elevator.

Brett watches him carefully. He doesn’t seem pissed off - more sad. Vulnerable. Brett’s still not used to seeing it, really, even knowing Liam’s anger is a self-defence mechanism - even as Liam uses it less and less.

The elevator doors close behind them; once they do, Liam reaches out and takes Brett’s hand, his head down to look at their entwined fingers. Brett gives him a soft squeeze, rubs Liam’s knuckles with his thumb.

Liam looks up at him. Leans his head back against the wall of the elevator and tilts it a little to the left, then smiles at him weakly.

“I hate it when she calls.”

Brett nods and doesn’t say anything, but he does step closer, squeeze Liam’s hand a little tighter. Liam seems grateful for the extra affection at any rate, and by the time the elevator opens on their floor, he seems to have mostly picked himself up.

He wants to stick around and make sure Liam’s alright, even though he’s shivering and cold, but Liam waves him off and tells him to get into the shower, so Brett does, reluctantly.

When he gets out, Liam’s sitting quite happily on the kitchen counter - generally his favourite spot to sit - and eating ice cubes out of the tray. His fingernails are turning blue.

“Why are you like this?” Brett teases gently, taking the tray from Liam and stepping up between his legs.

Liam smiles - there’s an ice block in his mouth, on his tongue. “Try it,” he encourages thickly.

And Brett - because he’s really taken with Liam and wants to show that, somehow, without having to explicitly say it - takes an ice cube from the tray and puts it in his mouth. Liam grins widely.

Brett winces. “Liam, this hurts,” he says.

“You’re a baby.” Liam chews his ice cube into pieces.

It’s not so bad once his mouth is numb from the cold and the ice cube is smaller, but he still can’t fathom how Liam does it, and he’s honestly concerned that Liam’s gonna break his fucking beautiful teeth one day. He doesn’t say any of that, though.

Liam’s phone buzzes again. He ignores it, even as his expression tightens a little.

“Want me to answer and pretend to be a morgue?” Brett asks.

Liam laughs. “What would you even say?”

“Hi, you’ve reached Talbot’s Mortuary, you kill 'em, we chill 'em.”

Liam bursts into a fit of laughter so loud it’s almost howling, and Brett can’t help but laugh right along with him. God, he loves making Liam happy. Especially when he’s been sad.

Liam’s still smiling when he eventually looks at Brett again. “You know,” he says, “she calls all the time. He never does.”

Brett nods. Liam’s stating it in a matter-of-fact manner, without any hint of malice or negativity. He’s just getting it off his chest to make it a little easier to breathe. Brett gets that.

“I thought about it for a while,” Liam says. “I know why she calls. She feels bad for what happened. What they did to me and how they treated me. He doesn’t. That’s why it’s never him.”

“Do you want it to be?” Brett asks.

“No,” Liam replies softly. “I’d really rather they both just left me alone.”

Liam wants his family to leave him alone. Brett wants his family to want him back. Liam deals with his trauma by pushing people away; Brett deals with his by clinging to people. Somehow, somewhere, they’ve found a happy middle ground, and they’re existing in a quiet space of mutual understanding.

There’s a low rumble overhead. A storm, by the sounds of it, rolling in on the tail-end of winter and probably bitterly cold. Even as Brett watches, Liam shivers on the countertop.

“My parents don’t know I’m gay,” Liam says.

“Are you going to tell them?”

“No. They don’t know anything else about me either.”

Brett’s used to Liam talking like this. He thinks that a lot must go on in Liam’s head - whole conversations or trains of thought that Liam’s too nervous to speak aloud, or maybe doesn’t realise he hasn’t. To anyone else, Brett’s sure it would come off as disjointed and absentminded, but he knows it’s just because Liam’s brain never settles on anything for very long.

The lights flicker a little; Brett steps closer to Liam and bends a little to wrap his arms around Liam’s body. Liam stretches up into his embrace eagerly, closes his legs around Brett’s waist and hips.

“It’s really quiet,” Liam whispers.

He’s right. It’s like the whole world has suddenly disappeared or gone to sleep. He used to hate nights like this - they left him alone with his own thoughts, way too alone, and sometimes he thought he’d go crazy from the ricocheting thoughts bouncing around in his skull - thoughts of his sexuality, his life, what he wanted to do, who he wanted to be, how to do and be all of that at once while simultaneously doing and being what his parents wanted - what they expected.

But Liam’s like a blanket to those thoughts; his presence settles into the cracks of Brett’s mind and everything inside his head is finally, blessedly quiet. He doesn’t think. When he does, it’s just a vague, floating thing, like a leaf across a pond.

Liam yawns softly into his shoulder. He smells like laundry detergent and cold and like sleep. Like home.

Liam’s not who Brett thought he would end up finding at any point of his life, let alone the lowest and darkest. But he’s here now, all of him, leaning against Brett sleepily when, months ago, he would barely say hello. Brett smooths a hand up Liam’s spine gently.

“My parents raised me really religious,” Brett says to Liam. “I think I stopped believing in God when I was six or seven, though. Way before I stopped believing in Santa, anyway.”

Liam leans back a little bit; his pupils are wide in the semi-darkness of the kitchen, his lips red from the cold of the ice cubes. “You know they aren’t dickheads because of the religion, right?” he asks softly. “They just use it as an excuse to be bigoted. There’s loads of really good religious people who accept everyone, no matter what.”

“Yeah. I know. I just wish they were those people.”

Liam doesn’t bother to tell him that they’ll change. Brett likes that; they don’t lie to one another, not like this. They both seem to know that lying provides a really brief, cold comfort at the expense of actually dealing with reality. Brett wonders how many times Liam’s parents told him things would change - how many times they promised they’d never hurt him again.

It really hits him, full-force, in that moment, that Liam’s parents were abusive in every sense of the term. He’s standing here, between Liam’s legs, with his hands resting gently on Liam’s waist and looking into his face - which, after months of painstaking trust-building and patience and gentleness - is finally open and readable to Brett like a book.

He swallows; his throat feels tight. His hand skates up to Liam’s shoulder, nudging his shirt aside, and touches the hard, unforgiving metal plating keeping his collarbone in one piece and functional. Liam’s face softens into an expression of sadness.

“Brett, don’t… don’t think about that, okay?” He sounds like he’s begging. “I don’t… I don’t want you to look at me and see what they did to me. I want you to look at me and see me.”

“I do see you.” His hand travels up to Liam’s neck. “I really hate them for what they did to you, Liam.”

Liam’s eyes have gone glossy and red with emotion, but he doesn’t cry. “Is it really fucked up that I miss them?”

“No.” Brett strokes Liam’s neck with his thumb. “No, you’re allowed to miss them, Liam.”

“I wish things had been different.”

Brett closes his eyes. God, so does he. He doesn’t wish he hadn’t come out, now, because what Liam’s been telling him all along has finally sunk in for him - he didn’t do anything wrong. His parents did by kicking him out. He doesn’t wish he hadn’t come out; he wishes his parents had been able to accept it.

Thunder cracks; there’s a flash of lightning, and the entire apartment is plunged into darkness. Brett can only see the whites of Liam’s eyes and the glossy reflection of his teeth when he licks his lips.

“We should find some candles,” Liam says quietly.

Brett nods and steps back, carefully, to let Liam down onto the floor. Liam knows his way around the apartment like he’s lived here his whole life and nothing has changed; he leads Brett by the hand to the laundry closet in the hallway, produces a box of candles and some matches, and lights a few on the living room table.

Brett smiles a little. “Cozy,” he comments, and Liam smiles.

“When the power goes out we usually play board games. Hayds and Mase should be home soon.”

“What are we playing tonight?”

“I dunno. Scrabble?”

“Hayden hates Scrabble.”

“Monopoly?”

“You’re only suggesting that because you fucking decimate us every time.”

“Well yeah.”

~*~

Hayden and Mason arrive home together, apparently having met up outside the elevator.

“I hate it when the power’s out and we have to use the stairs,” Hayden moans as she drops down at the coffee table. “Liam, what are you eating?”

“Chocolate, want some?”

“Mm, yes please.”

Liam apparently has a candy stash none of them knew about - with the microwave and stove unusable, they eat their way through it and settle in to play Monopoly. Liam’s shivering a little; he’s wearing a sweatshirt, but he still seems cold.

Brett rubs his arms a little. “Go get another sweatshirt,” he says gently.

“I’m not cold,” Liam says stubbornly.

“Sure.” Brett gets up to get something to drink; when he comes back, Liam’s hunched over, still shaking, and Brett smiles a little. Nobody can say Liam isn’t stubborn.

He settles on the carpet behind Liam and slides forward, slowly, so that Liam’s sitting in between his legs. He’s worried Liam will push him away in front of Hayden and Mason, but he doesn’t - he tucks his hands awkwardly under Brett’s thighs instead and wriggles back to lean on his chest.

“Much better,” Liam mumbles.

“Happy to be useful,” Brett replies.

Hayden smiles at them both happily. She really doesn’t seem to mind that Brett is the one Liam appears to feel safest with; Brett was worried she would, or that Mason would - that there would be some sort of fucked-up competition over who could get Liam to open up the fastest. But they really just seem happy that Liam’s making progress and letting people close to him.

Liam wins Monopoly, of course, and graciously offers to split the winnings with Brett twenty-eighty for being “such a good backrest”. Brett tickles him in retaliation.

They go to bed not long after finishing Monopoly; Liam has a shower and brushes his teeth sleepily, eyes half-shut, in the bathroom mirror. Brett stands next to him, occasionally knocking his side into Liam’s and getting a retaliatory nudge back - a few that are hard enough to make him dribble toothpaste foam everywhere. Liam wrinkles his nose in a clear expression of disgust.

Liam’s bed is cold without the electric blankets, but it smells like clean laundry and Liam’s shampoo and that’s still really nice, and besides, the colder it is, the more likely Liam is to drape himself over Brett like a giant human-shaped blanket. It’s stopped snowing as much, but it’s still wet and cold as the weather moves reluctantly into spring.

“Warm enough?” Brett asks softly. Liam’s settled up against his side, sitting up a little and looking down at Brett with a smile.

“Yeah.” He reaches out, then, and thumbs at the corner of Brett’s mouth. “Sorry. You had toothpaste.”

Brett smiles back. When he first met Liam, he couldn’t have ever imagined that he’d be as gentle as to wipe toothpaste off the corner of Brett’s mouth, or to sit with him while Brett had panic attacks and lost his grip on reality. But here they are, and Liam’s actually the softest, most gentle person Brett’s ever met in his life.

Brett leans up a little to kiss Liam, softly - gently. Liam makes a surprised noise, but he tips his head down to make it a little easier - his hair falls onto Brett’s forehead.

“Night,” Liam murmurs.

“Night, Liam,” Brett whispers back.

~*~

When he wakes up in the morning, Liam’s already awake and on his laptop.

Brett blinks sleepily; Liam’s wearing his glasses, tapping away at the keyboard quietly, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He must be doing homework.

“What’re you writing?” Brett asks sleepily. Liam’s hair is sticking up at crazy angles - maybe he hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet.

“Analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment,” Liam mumbles, chewing on his lower lip.

“And what are you analysing?”

“Ethics, mostly.”

“How do you think this early in the morning?” Brett asks, yawning hugely.

Liam tilts the laptop screen to him - one half is a word document, and the other is an open PDF file. The word document has a lot of gaps, highlights, and question marks.

He grins sleepily. “So you don’t.”

“Yup.”

Brett looks at him properly. Liam’s wearing boxers and no shirt; his skin looks soft and smooth and inviting, so Brett presses a kiss into his side, smiling when Liam twitches. Liam’s pretty ticklish, and Brett’s got some stubble going on - and there are shivers rippling up the skin of Liam’s sides.

“What are you doing?” Liam asks.

“I want your attention,” Brett says, blinking up him balefully.

Liam smiles. “Well, if you want my attention…” He puts the laptop aside and reaches for his glasses. Brett stops him.

“Leave them on,” he says, smiling, and Liam does as he scoots back down in bed and allows Brett to stroke his spine. Eventually, he moves around to Liam’s collarbone - presses lightly to find the ridge of the interlocked metal plates.

“They don’t hurt,” Liam says. “I think I already told you that.”

“You did, but more reassurance is nice,” Brett says softly. After a moment, he tilts Liam’s shoulder a little, so he can see the marks on it, and lowers his mouth to the area, kissing each one of the tiny surgery scars until he’s almost at the base of Liam’s neck.

When he resurfaces, Liam’s watching him sadly. “They’re ugly,” he murmurs.

“I don’t think so,” Brett says. “There’s no part of you that’s ugly.”

Liam opens his mouth, then closes it. “Not even the scars?”

“Not even the scars.” Brett traces them lightly, feeling the ridges of the plates just beneath Liam’s skin. “Besides, aren’t you the one who said you were basically part cyborg and that that’s awesome?”

Liam smiles. “I think it _was_ me who said that.”

“There you go.” Brett kisses the marks again. “I’m gonna do this until you feel better about them, you know.”

Liam’s got his eyes closed; he’s leaned up on one elbow, his torso tilted towards Brett, and he leans his head up against the junction of Brett’s neck and shoulder suddenly, giving a soft, pleased sigh.

Brett pauses. “You like this?”

“Mm.” Liam sounds almost drowsy. “It’s like you wanna love the parts of me I can’t. Nobody’s done that before.”

Brett continues kissing the marks, flicking his tongue hesitantly over Liam’s skin, right near the tendons in his neck. Liam’s skin tastes weirdly different to a girl’s skin - a little muskier, maybe - but Brett likes it. He can feel Liam’s pulse throbbing against his cheek.

He runs a hand up the bare skin of Liam’s side, feeling the hard ridges of his hip and ribs, and the slightly softer swell of his muscles. A shiver follows him all the way up, and by the time Brett’s stopped at Liam’s chest, his nipples have peaked and hardened.

He shuffles a little lower, puts his mouth against Liam’s right nipple, and gives it a soft lick. Liam makes a noise above him that sounds like begging. When Brett spreads his palm over Liam’s side, fingers nestled just under his left pec, he feels Liam’s heart fluttering anxiously against the pads of his fingers.

He doesn’t even hesitate before taking Liam’s nipple into his mouth properly and beginning to lavish it with attention; he manages to find the other one with his hand and begins tweaking it.

“Fuck,” Liam moans, and he wriggles against Brett’s hands. This close, Brett can hear the way Liam’s heart is pounding frantically inside his chest - he’s really worked up and he got there really fast, which Brett supposes might have something to do with the fact that Liam’s been essentially celibate since they admitted their feelings to one another.

He takes his hand off Liam’s chest, revelling in the disappointed, frustrated moan Liam gives, and snakes it down along his belly, feeling the muscles tighten in anticipation.

“Brett,” Liam whispers.

“Mm, relax,” Brett mumbles into Liam’s chest. He’s finally reached his destination - Liam’s dick, which is rigid in the confines of his boxers.

“Huh,” Liam gasps, rocking up into his hand the moment it lands there. “Hard to relax when you’re torturing me.”

“You think I’m torturing you now,” Brett murmurs. “Wait till you see what I can do with some lube and two fingers.”

The noise Liam makes is nowhere near a moan; it’s an outright whimper, and he squirms as Brett massages him through his boxers. There’s a damp spot already, Brett realises. Liam probably needs more sexual fulfilment than getting jerked off once a week. Brett’s not sure what’s been stopping him from doing that, either.

He leans back a little. “Do you like that idea?” he murmurs.

Liam nods quickly.

“Me?” Brett clarifies. “Fingering you?”

“Yes,” Liam mumbles into his neck. “Yeah. Please.”

“Now?”

“Now. There’s lube in the bedside table.”

Brett leans over and rummages in the top drawer, and when he turns around, Liam’s managed to completely discard his clothes. He smiles impishly when he lies back on the bed, and the way he still gets a little pink is endearing.

“How often do you do this?” Brett asks.

Liam shrugs. “Not that often,” he says. “I mean… yeah, not that often. But I know what I’m doing. Or - what you’re doing, I guess.”

Brett smiles. “Okay.” He smears some lube on his fingers. “Sorry if it’s cold.”

Liam shrugs again. “Doesn’t bother me.”

Brett reaches down - he stops right before he starts to get the lube on Liam, to look at him. Liam raises his eyebrows and says, “What?”

Typical Liam, Brett thinks as he smiles and brushes the pad of his finger gently against Liam’s entrance. Liam shivers - a full-bodied thing that ripples up his torso and has his breath catching in his chest. He might be acting like he’s disinterested, but his body is completely giving him away.

He presses lightly, and Liam’s body gives way to him easily. He’s relaxed, obviously not anticipating that Brett might accidentally hurt him. He notices that Liam’s eyes are closed, too, his face lax. He even looks like he might be on the verge of smiling.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” Liam sighs. “Feels good.”

“Really?”

“Mm. I might not do it often but I enjoy it.” Liam opens his eyes to look at Brett - they’re cloudy with desire. “C'mon. Little deeper? Or… show me that trick you were boasting about.” He grins. “If you can make me yell I’ll give you head later.”

Brett’s mouth is dry. “Make you yell?”

“Yeah. Scream. Whatever.”

“Do I get any hints?”

“Mm, no. That’d be cheating. You gotta work it out on your own.”

Brett nods thoughtfully. “Okay.”

Liam relaxes back again, and Brett works him with one finger for a little while before adding a second. Liam gives a brief, satisfied moan when it breaches him, wriggling a little. If the state of his dick is anything to go by - hard and leaking precome on his belly - he’s thoroughly enjoying himself.

Brett straightens a little. “You said to make you yell,” he murmurs. “But Hayden and Mason-”

“Aren’t here and won’t be for a while,” Liam says. “You chickening out?”

“Never,” Brett huffs, and Liam smiles. “Can you do me a favour?”

“Mm?”

“Get on your hands and knees.”

Liam opens his eyes, tilts his head, and smiles. “Hands and knees, huh?”

“Yup. Trust me.”

Liam readjusts when Brett removes his fingers, onto his hands and knees as Brett asked. “Kinky,” he comments. “I can’t see you.”

Brett smiles smugly to himself. “Yup. Now stay like that.”

“Stay like - you mean I can’t touch myself?”

“Nope.”

“Damn,” Liam mumbles disappointedly. “Okay.”

Brett kisses Liam’s lower back as he presses his fingers back inside. Liam breathes out shakily, and Brett watches his fingers knot into the sheets.

“Easy,” Brett teases, and Liam makes a vaguely disgruntled noise. It’s quiet, though, and it turns into more of a soft gasp when Brett starts working his fingers, searching for Liam’s prostate - which he knows, thanks to Google, is nestled in some relatively easy to reach spot.

He realises he’s found it when Liam twitches and rewards him with a quiet keening noise, and his hips pitch forward, his dick bobbing between his legs.

“Found it,” Brett says triumphantly.

“Mmhm, yeah,” Liam mumbles. “Are you sure I can’t-”

Brett leans around a little with his other arm and takes Liam’s dick in his hand, gently, revelling in the way the action causes Liam to fall totally and completely silent. He’s rocking a little, now, like he isn’t sure whether he wants to go towards Brett’s fingers or into his hand.

“You gonna let me take care of you?” Brett asks softly.

“Mm, yeah,” Liam mumbles, the words ghosting out on a single breath.

“Okay.” Brett jerks him slowly, letting Liam ease into the movement, and continues to finger him. It only takes a minute or so before Liam’s noticeably breathless, rocking more insistently, and pliant under Brett’s hands.

Brett hesitates for a moment, but Liam seems suitably worked up, and Brett really wants to hear him make some more noise. So he adds lube to a third finger - and Liam’s paying attention, Brett can tell by the set of his back and the way he suddenly goes quiet - and then begins to press at Liam’s entrance.

Liam whimpers. There’s no other way to describe it; he whimpers, then moans, as Brett’s third finger breeches him. He’s curling over, then, head down, and his dick is rock solid in Brett’s grip.

“Good?” Brett murmurs.

“Move,” Liam gasps.

Brett smirks, but he begins to work his fingers - tantalisingly slow, until Liam’s rocking and panting harshly, and then begins to resume his slow, careful stroking of Liam’s dick.

“Please,” Liam gasps suddenly.

“What?” Brett asks - and it’s a genuine question. He really wasn’t expecting Liam to beg.

“Let me come,” Liam groans. “Please. I promise I’ll suck you off.”

Brett smiles. “All worked up, huh?”

Liam pushes back against him - he’s almost sitting back on his shins at this point. “Please?” he whispers.

Brett swallows. He can only imagine what Liam might sound like when they end up fucking properly; thanks to this little episode, it’s very, very insightful guessing. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Relax.”

Liam does - he’s still making noise, though, and it ramps up insistently as Brett targets his prostate harder, then faster, then increases the speed he’s jacking Liam off at.

He feels Liam’s muscles flutter around his fingers urgently right before Liam makes a startled noise and says - desperately, like it’s a warning of sorts - “Brett, I’m gonna come.”

“Okay,” Brett says simply, and it only takes two more strokes before Liam’s coming messily onto Brett’s hand and the sheets beneath him and - yeah, the noise he makes can definitely be classed as some kind of shout or cry of pleasure.

Brett works him through it before withdrawing his fingers, wiping them off carefully, and then guiding Liam onto the mattress. He’s shaking violently, particularly his legs, and he’s sweaty and breathless.

“You owe me head,” Brett says smugly.

Liam’s eyes drift open. “You cheated,” he accuses faintly.

“Cheated? How?”

“You said two fingers,” Liam mumbles. “You used three.”

Brett grins. “You weren’t complaining a minute ago.”

“And I’m not now, and I guess I’ll still give you head. You know, for giving me one of the best orgasms of my life and everything.” Liam shifts. “If you help me strip the bed.”

They strip the bed and remake it; Liam looks happily debauched, even after a shower, and it must show to everyone else too - Hayden and Mason arrive home at the same time, and the moment they see Liam, Hayden grins and Mason’s eyebrows almost shoot through the roof. Brett doesn’t think about the fact that they apparently know what Liam looks like post-orgasm.

“Did you guys have sex?” Mason demands.

Brett blushes, but Liam just shrugs and says, “Close enough.”

“Damn,” Mason murmurs. “Everyone’s getting laid around here except me. What’s up with that?”

“It’s much easier when they live with you,” Liam says, and he sounds almost smug as he moves towards the kitchen and opens the freezer, rustling around to find some ice cubes. Hayden and Mason look to Brett, who holds up his hands innocently.

They do their usual nightly routine - board games, some TV. Liam has his laptop out on his lap, working absently on some revision, but halfway through the newest episode of How To Get Away With Murder, Brett notices he’s blinking sleepily.

He readjusts so he’s leaning against the arm of the couch, opens his legs. “C'mere,” he says softly.

Liam blinks drowsily, but he moves to lie between Brett’s legs, bringing the laptop with him. Within five minutes, he’s asleep, his head lolled against Brett’s bicep.

Hayden smiles as she leans over, takes Liam’s laptop, and saves his work before closing it. “He must really feel safe around you,” she whispers. “I’ve never seen him do that before.”

Brett squeezes Liam with his legs, fondly, and kisses his head. Liam doesn’t stir. He sleeps like that for a long time - they get through the rest of the episode and another one before Brett’s getting tired too, and regretfully hustles Liam awake and upright so they can go to bed.

“Don’t forget your glasses,” he murmurs, noticing Liam’s about to lie down with them still on his face.

“Oh yeah,” Liam yawns, taking them off and putting them on the bedside table. “Where’s-”

“It’s in the living room,” Brett says soothingly, climbing into bed. “Go to sleep.”

It doesn’t take much more convincing than that. Liam’s quickly asleep again, and Brett lies there - despite feeling tired, his eyes seem to be pinned open and his mind is wired awake, racing with errant thoughts of his family.

He hasn’t heard from Lori again. He didn’t expect to this soon anyway but he wishes… well, he wishes he had. He misses her. And he still wants, more than anything, for his parents to apologise. To beg him to come home.

Would he go? He gnaws his lip. A month ago he would’ve said yes in a heartbeat. Now…

He looks over at Liam, feels his heart melting into a gooey mass of fondness. This prickly, vaguely skunk-coloured kid is his everything, now. He doesn’t think he could leave. He likes Liam too much, cares about him - feels too good when he’s around Liam. Like things are alright, or if they aren’t, they at least will be.

The best of both worlds would be his parents apologising to him for everything and maybe continuing to pay for his education. He could find a job, maybe, right after finishing - pay Liam, Hayden and Mason back for everything they’ve done for him. Maybe he could even stay, if that’s what they all wanted.

He chews his lip. It’s true nursing doesn’t pay much. Still, it would be more than nothing - enough, probably, as long as he picked up enough shifts. He could go back for further education later maybe. Something more than a bachelor.

He rubs his face. He’s exhausted, but he can’t switch off. Like he’s had caffeine or something.

Brett reaches out and starts to rub Liam’s back slowly. Liam’s asleep, but he sighs happily at the sensation, pushing into Brett’s palm a little.

Brett smiles softly. Touching Liam always helps. Because he’s warm, and he’s a really tactile, responsive person - Liam reacting to his touch reminds Brett that he exists, and that’s really nice. To feel like Liam, at least, would notice if something were to happen to him.

“Hmm?” Liam asks sleepily.

“Nothing, Li. Go back to sleep.”

Liam shuffles, rolls onto his back, and then onto his side - tucks himself right up along Brett’s body and settles there, his hand on Brett’s chest. Brett hikes his shirt up a little bit and strokes the skin of his waist softly.

To his surprise, Liam smiles. “That tickles,” he whispers drowsily.

Brett’s lips twitch. “Sorry, Li.”

“Can’t you sleep?”

“I’m having trouble. You should get some though.”

But Liam’s levering himself upright and blinking at him drowsily. “Why can’t you sleep?” he asks, yawning hugely.

“I’m just overthinking stuff,” Brett responds softly. “Don’t stress. I’m okay. I’m with you.”

Liam blinks; his eyelids move slowly, and his pupils are blown wide in the darkness. He shuffles to press back against Brett, puts his forehead down on Brett’s chest, and murmurs, “Are the thoughts intrusive?”

“Huh?”

“Intrusive. Like… unwelcome. And upsetting. Something you can’t get rid of.”

“Yes,” Brett breathes. “How’d you-”

“Sometimes I try to help myself,” Liam murmurs into his skin. “By getting rid of them. It doesn’t always work but it helps knowing they don’t have much basis.”

“Roll onto your back,” Brett murmurs.

Liam rolls onto his back, and Brett rolls up beside him; strokes his hair lightly and stares into Liam’s sleepy, trusting eyes. He blinks slowly, again, reaches up to touch Brett’s face.

“You can sleep on me,” he offers drowsily. “If it helps.”

“Won’t I be heavy?”

“Nah.”

So Brett lies against Liam the same way Liam does on him - against his side, with his head on Liam’s chest. His heartbeat is incredibly even, slow - comforting.

“That better?” Liam yawns.

Brett finally feels his eyes closing. “Much,” he murmurs.

Liam drifts off again. Brett is too, until he hears a whirring noise - Liam’s phone, on the nightstand, has begun to buzz.

Brett lifts his head a little, sleepily. It’s probably just Liam’s mom - she tries calling at all hours, maybe trying to catch him off guard enough to answer, maybe unsure of what hours he works or what he’s even doing or if he’s alive. Liam never answers, and he deletes the voicemails straight away too.

But it’s not Liam’s mom.

Brett blinks, trying to clear his vision. It’s only once he has that he sees the word flashing across the screen - _Dad_.

His gut lurches horribly. Liam’s dad. Who, by Liam’s own admission, has never tried to call him before, not since he left home. It’s always been his mom.

He looks at Liam. Liam’s not even stirring - he’s turned a little and his face is pressed into Brett’s side and he’s breathing quietly. The call didn’t even come close to rousing him.

Brett stares at the phone as it stops ringing. A missed call alert shows up, and then a text.

He bites his lip before reaching over and grabbing Liam’s phone. The text is from Liam’s voicemail; _Dad called at 12:38AM and did not leave a message._

Brett breathes out. He doesn’t even have to think about what to do next; he knows Liam doesn’t want to hear from his dad, that he’s still really afraid of the guy, that he would rather die than have to go back there. He erases the text, then the call itself from Liam’s recent calls history, then puts the phone back on the bedside table.

_This is better_ , he thinks, even as his gut churns with the knowledge that he’s lying, at least by omission, to Liam. _The less he hears from his parents, the better._

Still, it doesn’t do anything to soothe his guilt, and no matter how much he listens to the sound of Liam’s heart beating, he can’t be coaxed into sleep.

When Liam stirs against his side in the morning, Brett’s still awake. Still thinking about it. And still wondering, deep down, if he did the right thing.


End file.
